Build Operate Transfer and private sector led hydropower development
1. Build Operate Transfer and private sector led
hydropower development: assessing benefits and risks
Dr. Nathanial Matthews
Research Coordinator
Water, Land and Ecosystems
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2. Models of PPP
• BOT – Build Operate Transfer
• DBFO – Design Build Finance
Operate
• Concession Lease
• Corporatization
• BTO – Build Transfer Operate
• Lease
• BOO – Build Own Operate
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3. Characteristics of BOTs
• Typically involves private sector handling all the
financing, design, construction and operation of an
infrastructure project for a concessionary period of
usually 20-50 years.
• The private operator runs the infrastructure at a rate
of return high enough to service debts and afterwards
to generate a profit of approximately 15% or more.
• BOT structures tend to be complex. Within the BOT
contract there are dozens of fees, guarantees, loans
and contracts needed between each actor
• BOT projects restrict investors from removing their
equity when they please, so large consortium are
generally formed to spread exposure.
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4. Share Holder Loaner
Project Co.
Turn-key contract
General Contractor
Governmental
General Contractor
Operator
O & M Contract
Design Civil Works Electro-mechanical Equipment
5. A Brief History of BOT and privatized infrastructure
• The Suez Canal was the world’s first BOT project, built
at a final cost of US$18 million in 1868.
• Privatized infrastructure expanded in the 1970s and
was widely adopted from the 1990s onwards.
• Notable examples include the US$19 billion Channel
Tunnel, the US$17 billion Taipei Transit System and the
US$15 billion Kansai Airport.
• Expected to reach USD $4 Trillion by 2017 driven
mainly by weakened public finances, increased private
capital seeking long-term, low-risk, inflation-protected
returns that are better insulated against economic
cycles.
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6. Benefits
• Harness new investment
• Not total privatization
• Transfer risk
• Innovate
• Find efficiencies
• Public control maintained
• Provide a vehicle to open markets to
international and regional investment and
development
• Can allows funding outside of political economies
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7. Challenges
• Opportunities for investors to profit through
construction or service supply may incentivize
investments with weak returns.
• Governments with weak capacity may absorb risks
and provide private sector guarantees such as
supplying security, water flows, fuel, or electricity.
• Complexity can result in a range of environmental,
socio-economic, financial, and political risks being
undervalued, overlooked, or misidentified.
• Business norms tend to impede project
transparency and participatory processes.
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8. Examples from the
Mekong
• Over 25 MoUs signed with Lao PDR in the late
1990s
• A tendency to favour large-scale, capital intensive
projects over smaller-scale initiatives
• Lack of ownership over environmental and social
mitigation
• Multi-purpose dams are rarely considered
• Construction quality has varied – such as in
Vietnam
• Lack of transparency and participation, some
developers work towards this, others do not
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9. Future
• A recognition that privatized infrastructure can have
significant public impact, so the notion of risk and
uncertainty need to be adequately explored
• BOT/PPPs are an important way forward, but governments
need capacity to handle the investment.
• BOTs that consider long-term costs as well as short-term
benefits (decommissioning, sediment build up etc).
• Stronger monitoring and evaluation of projects post
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construction.
• Longer term commitments and ownership of
environmental and social impacts
• All energy development has trade-offs – privatized
infrastructure is the present and future of hydropower –
need to keep working towards better hydropower.
Editor's Notes
Expanded with deregulation and liberalisation of market economies
A WB report states that from 1990 to 1997 global private annual investments in developing country infrastructure rose from $19 billion to approximately $120 billion
While BOT projects should encourage careful investments because of the substantial risks involved, opportunities for investors to profit through construction or service supply may incentivize investments with weak returns.
Governments, particularly from developing countries, have been encouraged to absorb risks and provide private sector guarantees such as supplying security, water flows, fuel, or electricity.
The complexity of projects results in the possibility of a range of environmental, socio-economic, financial, and political risks being undervalued, overlooked, or misidentified.
Business norms impede project transparency and participation in the process.
Risks particularly high because of the env. And soc. Impacts
While the BOT/ IPP model has the potential to lever financing that is difficult for governments to access, it poses a unique water governance challenge between state and non-state actors. The notion of risk and uncertainty need to be further explored and shared by actors in a way that commonly held goals of development – economic, social and environmental – are considered, and legitimate right to access natural resources and social justice ensured.