Hao, P., Guo, J.P., O\textquoterightNeill, E. and Shi, Y.H. (2023). When Will First-Price Work Well? The Impact of Anti-Corruption Rules on Photovoltaic Power Generation Procurement Auctions Sustainability, 15(4):.

Along with the prevalence of photovoltaic (PV) procurement contracts, the corruption between auctioneers and potential electricity suppliers has attracted the attention of energy regulators. This study considers a corruption-proof environment wherein corruption is strictly suppressed. It elaborates a mechanism to explore the impact of corruption-proof measures on PV procurement auctions. It adopts incentive compatible constraints based on revelation principle to reflect PV firms{\textquoteright} optimal utilities. It employs first-price and first-score auctions and uses the Bayesian Nash equilibrium to provide a description of market outcomes. The results show that several strategies have different impacts on social welfare, PV firms{\textquoteright} utility, and the benefits of corruption. First, a first-price auction cannot act as a suitable policy because it may encourage corruption. Second, the first-score choice is desirable for social welfare to fit the forthcoming high-quality and low-price surroundings. Third, the first-score strategy maximizes PV firms{\textquoteright} utility and total income. The implications suggest that regulators ought not to employ first-price auctions in the future PV market from the perspective of social welfare. Another disadvantage of the first-price approach is that it enables the PV firm to maintain the utmost benefit from corruption.