Internalization of external economic effects on urban sprawl affected areas. An example of the Krakow Metropolitan Area, The study is a discussion on economic externalities, with particular emphasis on technological effects. Attention is also paid to the problem of internalization of economic external effects caused by movement (transport) in areas affected by the urban sprawl process. The research was conducted for all communes of the Krakow Metropolitan Area (KOM), as a result of which the value of: directly incurred financial losses and the value of lost time generated by the necessity of commuting and return in the space of KOM were presented.

The paper presents an analysis of energy and economic effectiveness of the combined heat and power (cogeneration) technologies fired with natural gas that may be deemed prospective for the Polish electric power system. The current state of the cogeneration technologies fired with natural gas in Poland is presented. Five cogeneration technologies fired with natural gas, prospective from the point of view of the Polish electric power system, were selected for the analysis. Namely, the paper discusses: gas-steam combined heat and power (CHP) unit with 3-pressure heat recovery generator (HRSG) and steam interstage reheat, gas-steam CHP unit with 2-pressure HRSG, gas-steam CHP unit with 1-pressure HRSG, gas CHP unit with small scale gas turbine, operating in a simple cycle and gas CHP unit with gas engine. The following quantities characterizing the energy effectiveness of the cogeneration technologies were selected for the analysis: electricity generation efficiency, heat generation efficiency, primary energy savings (PES) and CO2 unit emission. The economic effectiveness of particular technologies was determined based on unit electricity generation costs, discounted for 2019, including the costs of purchasing CO2 emission allowances. The results of calculations and analyses are presented in a table and on a figures.

Using loans is an effective solution for the investment and construction of energy works in general and power plants in particular, especially for developing countries. In economic and financial studies of the project investment preparation stage, the options of using capital and paying interest will be taken into account to minimize risks and increase the project’s ability to pay due debts. However, it is difficult to know which loan repayment option is the most beneficial for the project and when the risk is for the project in the context of debt repayment. The current economic and financial analysis of the project mainly focuses on determining the feasibility of the project through basic parameters, such as net present value (NPV), benefit – cost – ratio (B/C), internal rate of return (IRR), profitability index (PI) and payback period (PP). These parameters do not indicate the most difficult time to pay off the project’s loans. This paper analyzes two options for repayment of long-term loans in Vietnam using the case study of Son La hydropower plant to clarify the above difficult times and recommend a suitable repayment plan for the power project. The analytical method is used to actualize the cash flow of capital and interest during the construction and operation of the works. In Option 1, the debt is paid annually for interest and capital with a constant amount of money during the repayment period. In Option 2, the original dept without interest is paid with a constant amount of money during the repayment period, the interest (due to the remaining original capital) must be paid in the year when the interest is incurred. The study results show that the amount of the annual payment in option 1 is smaller than in Option 2 in the first four years (of ten years of debt repayment). Thus, capital and interest payment in Option 2 may be more detrimental than Option 1 in the first three years of debt repayment, and the amount of money from debt repayment is greater than the profit obtained from power generation. Thus, depending on the profit in the first years when the power plant comes into operation, the investor needs to decide on a reasonable way to repay the loan so that the project can self-finance.

The paper presents an analysis of the sustainable development of electricity generation sources in the National Power System (NPS). The criteria to be met by sustainable power systems were determined. The paper delineates the power balance of centrally dispatched power generation units (CDPGU), which is required for the secure work of the NPS until 2035. 19 prospective electricity generation technologies were defined. They were divided into the following three groups: system power plants, large and medium combined heat and power (CHP) plants, as well as small power plants and CHP plants (distributed sources). The quantities to characterize the energy effectiveness and CO2 emission of the energy generation technologies analyzed were determined. The unit electricity generation costs, discounted for 2018, including the costs of CO2 emission allowance, were determined for the particular technologies. The roadmap of the sustainable development of the generation sources in the NPS between 2020 and 2035 was proposed. The results of the calculations and analyses were presented in tables and figure

The paper presents multi-criteria optimization method allowing for selection of the best production scenarios in underground coal mines. We discuss here the dilemma between strategies maximizing economic targets and rational resources depletion. Elaborated method combines different geological and mining parameters, structure of the deposit, mine’s infrastructure constrains with economic criteria such as the net present value (NP V), earnings before deducting interest and taxes (EBIT ) and the free cash flows to firm (FCFF). It refers to strategic production planning. Due to implementation of advanced IT software in underground coal mines (digital model, automated production scheduling) we were able to identify millions of scenarios finally reduced to a few – the best ones. The method was developed and tested using data from mine operation “X” (a real project – an example of a coking coal mine located in Poland). The reliability of the method was approved; we were able to identify multiple production scenarios better than the one chosen for implementation in the “X” mine. The final product of the method were rankings of scenarios grouped according to economic decision criteria. The best scenarios reached NP V nearly 50% higher than the Base Case, which held only 52. position out of 60. According to EBIT and FCFF criteria, 10 scenarios achieved results higher than the Base Case, but the percentage differences were very small, below 2 and 4%, respectively. The developed method is of practical importance and can be successfully applied to many other coal projects.