Cost allocation – a study of how Swedish energy companies allocate costs between electricity and district heating in a combined heat and power plant District heating is today the most utilized alternative for heating in Sweden. In a combined heat and power plant (CHP) electricity and heat are cogenerated. The environmental and economic advantages with this kind of production are high. A problem in a CHP-plant is to allocate costs between electricity and heat since both products are generated in the same process. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Swedish energy companies allocate costs between electricity and heat. Furthermore this will lead to a greater understanding of how energy companies approach this problem. From this, conclusions will be drawn. In order to carry out this study, twelve Swedish energy companies were interviewed. The interviews were made from a qualitative perspective. A qualitative approach provides a deeper understanding of the cost allocation problem and offers a higher level of flexibility. Half of the companies that were interviewed stated that they allocated some of their costs to either electricity or to heat. All of these companies allocated fuel costs. In order to do this the companies based their allocation proportionally on the production output. Reasons given for allocation were to optimize production, increase control over costs, and obtain a general view of which product causes which cost. The second half of the companies did not do any kind of cost allocation. This was mainly because they did not find any advantages in doing so. Moreover, some of these companies thought that they did not have the economic resources.
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