distributed energy infrastructure paradigm community microgrids in a new institutional economics context abstract this paper provides a theoretical framework based on new institutional economics nie concepts to guide the development of community microgrids given limited application thus far of such energy systems this paper also draws on empirical studies and experiences from the planning and development of other public community infrastructure and utility services in the development of this framework it links an efficient ownership and governance structure with transactional characteristics such as asset idiosyncrasy frequency and uncertainty defined in section 3 1 the key role of the customers and the microgrid service provider and more specifically their bilateral monopoly relationship and its effects on the choice of institutional structure is highlighted the paper examines the optimum conditions for public private or hybrid financial ownership and for unified or network governance through long term contracting this allows ex ante investment uncertainty and ex post appropriation risks to be efficiently managed the analysis suggests that long term contract completeness future demand for electricity and level of uncertainty are the determining factors in the selection of institutional structure this has significant real world implications for the communities seeking to achieve electricity self sufficiency and environmental benefits through community microgrids service providers and other private or public actors

an analysis of feed in tariff remuneration models implications for renewable energy investment recent experience from around the world suggests that feed in tariffs fits are the most effective policy to encourage the rapid and sustained deployment of renewable energy there are several different ways to structure a fit policy each with its own strengths and weaknesses this paper presents an overview of seven different ways to structure the remuneration of a fit policy divided into two broad categories those in which remuneration is dependent on the electricity price and those that remain independent from it this paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of these different fit models and concludes with an analysis of these design options with a focus on their implications both for investors and for society

who governs energy the challenges facing global energy governance this article conceptualizes the energy problems facing society from a global governance perspective it argues that a notion of global energy governance taken to mean international collective action efforts undertaken to manage and distribute energy resources and provide energy services offers a meaningful and useful framework for assessing energy related challenges the article begins by exploring the concepts of governance global governance and global energy governance it then examines some of the existing institutions in place to establish and carry out rules and norms governing global energy problems and describes the range of institutional design options available to policymakers it briefly traces the role of a selection of these institutions from inter governmental organizations to summit processes to multilateral development banks to global action networks in responding to energy issues and points out their strengths and weaknesses the article concludes by analyzing how the various approaches to global governance differ in their applicability to addressing the conundrums of global energy problems

climate change and africa the impact of climate change on africa is likely to be severe because of adverse direct effects high agricultural dependence and limited capacity to adapt direct effects vary widely across the continent with some areas e g eastern africa predicted to get wetter but much of southern africa getting drier and hotter crop yields will be adversely affected and the frequency of extreme weather events will increase adaptation to climate change is primarily a private sector response and should involve relocation of people changes in the sectoral structure of production and changes in crop patterns the role of government is primarily to provide the information incentives and economic environment to facilitate such changes adaptation will be impeded by africa s fragmentation into small countries and ethnic groups and by poor business environments on the mitigation side there is a need to design emissions trading frameworks that support greater african participation than at present and that include land use change mitigation undertaken elsewhere will have a major impact on africa both positive e g new technologies and negative e g commodity price changes arising from biofuel policies

energy consumption and economic development in sub sahara africa sub saharan african countries economic development is dependent on energy consumption this paper assesses total energy demand which is composed of traditional energy wood fuel and commercial energy electricity and petroleum in the central east south and west regions of sub saharan africa cross sectional time series data for 20 countries in 25 years are analyzed and the results of the study show that wood fuel accounts for 70 of energy consumption followed by petroleum with most industrial activities utilizing some form of wood fuel regression results suggest that energy demand is inversely related to the price of petroleum and industrial development but positively related to gdp population growth rate and agricultural expansion and that price elasticity is less than one the model results also show that there are regional differences in energy demand in addition the interaction of population growth rates by regions generates mixed results and there are regional differences in the use of commercial energy consumption and gdp growth the findings of this study suggest that countries must diversify their energy sources and introduce energy efficient devices and equipment at all levels of the economy to improve gdp growth rate and gdp per capita

off grid energy services for the poor introducing led lighting in the millennium villages project in malawi lanterns that use light emitting diodes leds powered by batteries which are in turn charged by grid electricity or small solar panels have emerged as a cost competitive alternative to kerosene and other fuel based lighting technologies offering brighter light for longer duration at equal or lower cost over time this paper presents lessons learned from the introduction of solar led lanterns in rural malawi we discuss a market based program using new and existing local commercial structures such as vendors and cooperatives to sell lanterns to village households without subsidy the paper addresses issues of enterprise development community interactions and survey data on lighting use and expenditure patterns before and after led lantern introduction households that purchased a lantern reported high levels of satisfaction with the led lanterns as well as savings in annual kerosene expenditure comparable to the price of the lantern these households also reported monthly incomes comparable to the price of the led lanterns whereas non adopters surveyed reported monthly incomes about half this level suggesting a need for financing options to maximize adoption among poorer populations in rural areas these results suggest that similar market based models of led lighting technology dissemination have the potential to be replicated and scaled up in other off grid regions in developing countries however viability of local cooperatives and supply chains for lantern products over the medium to long term remain to be assessed

spatial cost benefit thinking in multi functional forestry towards a framework for spatial targeting of policy interventions abstract many countries now actively encourage land use change for the provision of multiple benefits specifically including non market benefits often such policies have been poorly designed because of a lack of understanding of the spatial distribution of the potential costs and especially non market benefits from land use change as with market goods the potential yield of non market goods and services from land use can be highly spatially variable in recent years more and more studies on the economic aspects of natural resources have started to make use of geographical information systems gis what is yet lacking is the systematic adoption of a framework for the spatial targeting of policy interventions which can be used to improve decision making in terms of effectiveness efficiency equity or public acceptability this paper uses existing studies in forestry to present such a framework and discusses its potential uses and limitations as a new standard tool to inform multi functional land use decisions

perception of risks in renewable energy projects the case of concentrated solar power in north africa the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent climate change while meeting the energy needs of developed and developing economies recent studies suggest that generation of electricity from concentrated solar power in north african countries and its transmission to europe could provide european and north african partners with low carbon electricity the private capital will be likely required to achieve the scale of new investment and yet the north african region experience difficulties with sustaining high levels of foreign direct investment from the private sector the literature identifies a number of risks as barriers to investment and we examine these in the particular context of renewable energy development we conducted three stages of interviews with stakeholders to learn their perceptions of the risks most likely to affect renewable energy projects three class of risks regulatory political and force majeure which includes terrorism stand out as being of high concern of these regulatory risks are perceived as being the most consequential and the most likely to occur this suggests that attention to building the capacities of north african countries to develop implement and enforce sound regulations in a transparent manner could be an important step in promoting renewable energy cooperation with europe

bond financing for renewable energy in asia abstract addressing the financing gap for renewable energy re projects in asia is critical to ensure that the rapidly increasing energy needs could be met sustainably this paper explores the cause of the financing gap in asia and proposes the use of bond financing to address the financing gap specifically three fixed income instruments namely local currency denominated lcy corporate bonds asset backed project bonds and financial green bonds will be assessed whilst the potential for these three instruments to mobilize large flows of private sector financing is great key supportive policies aimed at reducing the capital market bias for conventional power generation technologies and supportive re policies are required another key aspect would be the necessary deepening of local and regional fixed income markets before such capital market instruments are able to play a big role

powering africa meeting the financing and reform challenges africa faces chronic power problems including insufficient generation capacity low connectivity poor reliability and high costs all of which constrain development power capacity additions in sub saharan africa excl sa since the 1990 s were minuscule historically investments in the power sector in africa have come mostly from governments or public utilities with foreign aid support in recent years these sources of funding have been flat the fastest new sources of funding are from independent power producers ipps and from china to understand the determinant of the new sources the paper analyses the effect of several key factor and find non expected results such as there is no obvious correlation between unbundling or the presence of an independent regulator and the level of private investment through ipps or that there is no correlation between chinese investment in generation and resource rich countries dispelling the myth that chinese firms are only interested in africa s resources the paper delivers several recommendations that indicate that more attention needs to be given to issues related to planning procurement and contracting as well as securing revenue flows jel classification o13 o25 l94

investment in electricity markets with asymmetric technologies abstract capacity investments in electricity markets is one of the main issues in the restructuring process to ensure competition and enhance system security of networks we study competition between hydro and thermal electricity generators under demand uncertainty producers compete in quantities and each is constrained the thermal generator by capacity and the hydro generator by water availability we analyze a two period game emphasizing the incentives for capacity investments by the thermal generator we characterize both markov perfect and open loop equilibria in the markov perfect equilibrium investment is discontinuous in initial capacity and higher than it is in the open loop equilibrium however since there are two distortions in the model equilibrium investment can be either higher or lower than the efficient investment

gendered impacts of the 2007 2008 food price crisis evidence using panel data from rural ethiopia abstract this paper provides empirical evidence on the gendered impact of the 2007 2008 food price crisis using panel data on 1400 households from rural ethiopia that were initially surveyed before the onset of the crisis in 1994 1995 1997 and 2004 and after food prices spiked in 2009 it investigates whether female headed households are more likely to report experiencing a food price shock and whether female headed households experiencing a shock are more or less likely to adopt certain coping strategies controlling for individual household and community characteristics our findings suggest that female headed households are more vulnerable to food price changes and are more likely to have experienced a food price shock in 2007 2008 because female headed households are also resource poor and have a larger food gap compared with male headed households they cope by cutting back on the number of meals they provide their households during good months and eating less preferred foods in general a combination of short term measures to protect diet diversity and micronutrient consumption of vulnerable groups and longer term measures to promote investment in sustainable agriculture such as strengthening women s property rights may increase the ability of poor and vulnerable households to cope better with food price increases

energy consumption prices and economic growth in three ssa countries a comparative study in this paper we examine the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in three sub saharan african countries namely south africa kenya and congo drc we incorporate prices as an intermittent variable in a bivariate setting between energy consumption and economic growth thereby creating a simple trivariate framework using the ardl bounds testing procedure we find that the causality between energy consumption and economic growth varies significantly across the countries under study the results show that for south africa and kenya there is a unidirectional causal flow from energy consumption to economic growth however for congo drc it is economic growth that drives energy consumption these findings have important policy implications insofar as energy conservation policies are concerned in the case of congo drc for example the implementation of energy conservation policies may not significantly affect economic growth because the country s economy is not entirely energy dependent however for south africa and kenya there is a need for more energy supply augmentations in order to cope with the long run energy demand in the short run however the two countries should explore more efficient and cost effective sources of energy in order to address the energy dependency problem

scale and topology in the ecological economics sustainability paradigm abstract an ecologically sustainable scale of the economic system requires inclusion of spatial temporal dimensions and topological relationships while herman e daly and marcus stewen have deliberated some of the issues surrounding economic scale in their papers allocation distribution and scale towards an economics that is efficient just and sustainable ecol econ 6 1992 185 the interdependence of allocation distribution scale and stability a comment on herman e daly s vision of an economics that is efficient just and sustainable ecol econ 27 1998 119 and letters to the editor ecol econ 30 1999 1 ecol econ 30 1999 2 they do not address spatio temporal constraints on ecological processes although daly frames the scale of the economy based on sustainable throughput of resources relative to the environment the pragmatic approach to defining this sustainable scale must incorporate other dimensions of scale while daly ecol econ 6 1992 185 ecol econ 30 1999 1 correctly promotes a logical sequence of policy instruments scale should indeed elicit dependence from allocation and distribution decisions stewen s ecol econ 27 1998 119 ecol econ 30 1999 2 arguments included that these instruments have co evolutionary interdependencies but such arguments do not guarantee economic nor ecological sustainability a more useful definition of sustainable economic scale includes spatial and temporal dimensions scale constraints and topological relationships as they are framed by ecological components and processes the spatial scale of the global economy is large but temporally the global economy is diminutive two characteristics that typically define catastrophic events in ecological parlance using a spatio temporal framework daly s boat analogy can be extended to real world linkages and possible solutions through supplementing the current view of economic scale with spatio temporal distance and topology

rejecting renewables the socio technical impediments to renewable electricity in the united states if renewable power systems deliver such impressive benefits why do they still provide only 3 percent of national electricity generation in the united states as an answer this article demonstrates that the impediments to renewable power are socio technical a term that encompasses the technological social political regulatory and cultural aspects of electricity supply and use extensive interviews of public utility commissioners utility managers system operators manufacturers researchers business owners and ordinary consumers reveal that it is these socio technical barriers that often explain why wind solar biomass geothermal and hydroelectric power sources are not embraced utility operators reject renewable resources because they are trained to think only in terms of big conventional power plants consumers practically ignore renewable power systems because they are not given accurate price signals about electricity consumption intentional market distortions such as subsidies and unintentional market distortions such as split incentives prevent consumers from becoming fully invested in their electricity choices as a result newer and cleaner technologies that may offer social and environmental benefits but are not consistent with the dominant paradigm of the electricity industry continue to face comparative rejection

geographies of energy transition space place and the low carbon economy this paper makes a case for examining energy transition as a geographical process involving the reconfiguration of current patterns and scales of economic and social activity the paper draws on a seminar series on the geographies of energy transition security climate governance hosted by the authors between 2009 and 2011 which initiated a dialogue between energy studies and the discipline of human geography focussing on the uk government s policy for a low carbon transition the paper provides a conceptual language with which to describe and assess the geographical implications of a transition towards low carbon energy six concepts are introduced and explained location landscape territoriality spatial differentiation scaling and spatial embeddedness examples illustrate how the geographies of a future low carbon economy are not yet determined and that a range of divergent and contending potential geographical futures are in play more attention to the spaces and places that transition to a low carbon economy will produce can help better understand what living in a low carbon economy will be like it also provides a way to help evaluate the choices and pathways available

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

how will energy demand develop in the developing world most of the medium run growth in energy demand is forecast to come from the developing world which consumed more total units of energy than the developed world in 2007 we argue that the main driver of the growth is likely to be increased incomes among the poor and near poor we document that as households come out of poverty and join the middle class they acquire appliances such as refrigerators and vehicles for the first time these new goods require energy to use and energy to manufacture the current forecasts for energy demand in the developing world may be understated because they do not accurately capture the dramatic increase in demand associated with poverty reduction

independent power projects in sub saharan africa investment trends and policy lessons abstract sub saharan africa is in urgent need of more power private sector investment is key to achieving this along with chinese funded projects independent power projects ipp represent the fastest growing sources of power investment in sub saharan africa ipp investment flows show little concern for electricity market structures but are more likely to gravitate to countries with strong planning procurement and contracting capacity as well as good regulatory quality data from the continent also shows a variety of ownership and financing structures for ipps but generally development financing institutions dfis play an important part in mitigating risk and bringing in private financiers we also see renewable energy breaking through on the continent both in scale and price this breakthrough is in part being facilitated by competitive procurement or auctions which deliver lower prices and increased transparency when compared with renewable energy feed in tariffs or directly negotiated contracts these developments have important policy implications highlighting the need for dynamic least cost planning linked to the timely initiation of the competitive procurement of new generation capacity the building of effective regulatory capacity and appropriate risk mitigation mechanisms such efforts promise to promote sustainable economic and social development across the continent

energy consumption and economic growth revisited in african countries abstract the aim of this paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for 21 african countries over the period from 1970 to 2006 using recently developed panel cointegration and causality tests the countries are divided into two groups net energy importers and net energy exporters it is found that there exists a long run equilibrium relationship between energy consumption real gdp prices labor and capital for each group of countries as well as for the whole set of countries this result is robust to possible cross country dependence and still holds when allowing for multiple endogenous structural breaks which can differ among countries furthermore we find that decreasing energy consumption decreases growth and vice versa and that increasing energy consumption increases growth and vice versa and that this applies for both energy exporters and importers finally there is a marked difference in the cointegration relationship when country groups are considered

the economics of planning electricity transmission to accommodate renewables using two stage optimisation to evaluate flexibility and the cost of disregarding uncertainty abstract aggressive development of renewable electricity sources will require significant expansions in transmission infrastructure we present a stochastic two stage optimisation model that captures the multistage nature of transmission planning under uncertainty and use it to evaluate interregional grid reinforcements in great britain gb in our model a proactive transmission planner makes investment decisions in two time periods each time followed by a market response uncertainty is represented by economic technology and regulatory scenarios and first stage investments must be made before it is known which scenario will occur the model allows us to identify expected cost minimising first stage investments as well as estimate the value of information the cost of ignoring uncertainty and the value of flexibility our results show that ignoring risk in planning transmission for renewables has quantifiable economic consequences and that considering uncertainty can yield decisions that have lower expected costs than traditional deterministic planning methods in the gb case the value of information and cost of disregarding uncertainty in transmission planning were of the same order of magnitude approximately 100 m in present worth terms further the best plan under a risk neutral decision criterion can differ from the best under risk aversion finally a traditional sensitivity analysis based robustness analysis also yields different results than the stochastic model although the former s expected cost is not much higher

de risking concentrated solar power in emerging markets the role of policies and international finance institutions abstract concentrated solar power csp is a promising technology for low carbon energy systems as combined with thermal storage it can store solar energy as heat and deliver power more flexibly and when most needed by the grid however its high cost prevents its rapid deployment and affects its affordability in emerging economies international financial institutions ifis have emerged as key players to enable csp in emerging economies especially when cooperating with national policymakers through the analysis of two csp plants in india and morocco where ifis provided the lion s share of finance this paper aims to assess the effectiveness of their support and estimate the impact of ifis financing on electricity production costs and mobilization of private investments the two case studies show that public financial institutions can play a leading role in reducing the cost of csp support on public budgets by providing concessional loans in countries where public and or private finance would be too expensive or extending maturities where commercial investors are present but poorly suited for project finance finally we show that combined with competitive tariff setting mechanism tenders and auctions public financial support can also be a cost effective tool to engage private investors in csp

greening africa technologies endowments and the latecomer effect abstract africa is well endowed with potential for hydro and solar power but its other endowments shortages of capital skills and governance capacity make most of the green options relatively expensive while its abundance of hydro carbons makes fossil fuels relatively cheap current power shortages make expansion of power capacity a priority africa s endowments and the consequent scarcities and relative prices are not immutable and can be changed to bring opportunity costs in africa closer to those in the rest of the world the international community can support by increasing africa s supply of the scarce factors of capital skills and governance

the role for low carbon electrification technologies in poverty reduction and climate change strategies a focus on renewable energy mini grids with case studies in nepal peru and kenya abstract as a potential poverty reduction and climate change strategy this paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of using renewable energy technologies for rural electrification in developing countries although each case must be considered independently given a reliable fuel source renewable energy mini grids powered by biomass gasifiers or micro hydro plants appear to be the favoured option due to their lower levelised costs provision of ac power potential to provide a 24 h service and ability to host larger capacity systems that can power a wide range of electricity uses sustainability indicators are applied to three case studies in order to explore the extent to which sustainable welfare benefits can be created by renewable energy mini grids policy work should focus on raising awareness about renewable energy mini grids improving institutional technical and regulatory frameworks and developing innovative financing mechanisms to encourage private sector investments establishing joint technology and community engagement training centres should also be encouraged

financing energy efficiency in developing countries lessons learned and remaining challenges although energy efficiency implementation is increasingly being recognized by policymakers worldwide as one of the most effective means to mitigating rising energy prices tackling potential environmental risks and enhancing energy security mainstreaming its financing in developing country markets continues to be a challenge experience shows that converting cost effective energy savings potential particularly the demand side improvement opportunities across sectors into investments face many barriers and unforeseen transaction costs this paper draws upon selected experiences with financing energy efficiency in developing countries to explore the key factors of various programmatic approaches and financing instruments that have been applied successfully for delivering energy efficiency solutions through case studies a diverse range of institutional issues are examined related to the identification packaging designing and monitoring approaches that have been used to catalyze traditional and innovative financing of energy efficiency projects with adequate liquidity in major developing country markets and availability of modern energy savings technologies it is often the institutional issues that become a key challenge to address in order to finance and implement robust programs as further operational experience is gained increased knowledge sharing can lead to scaling up of such energy efficiency investments the paper concludes with some ideas for accelerating implementation

globalizing carbon lock in this paper extends the arguments surrounding carbon lock in elaborated in unruh energy policy 28 2000 817 30 2002 317 to countries currently undergoing industrialization it argues that for numerous reasons industrializing countries are unlikely to leapfrog carbon intensive energy development on the contrary carbon lock in may be globalizing and could further constrain climate change mitigation options it is then argued that many policy recommendations ignore carbon lock in possibly limiting their potential for successful implementation the paper then discusses four policy approaches that appear to have advantages given lock in conditions it is recognized however that relative ease of implementation does not necessarily equate with superiority instead it is merely a path dependent outcome of past development decisions pursuing policies on the basis of relative implementation ease may help address the issue of climate change but could also result in sub optimal outcomes along other dimensions of sustainable development

financing renewable energy in africa key challenge of the sustainable development goals abstract given the challenge of offering a development perspective to a rapidly growing population it might be tempting for africa to pursue a strategy of fueling growth with the cheapest source of energy available and take care of the environment later such an approach however would disregard the social cost of fossil fuels which the population would have to bear using the sustainable development goals as a benchmark for inclusive and sustainable growth we identify the synergy effects provided by renewable energy already substantial efforts of financing the additional cost of re are under way an analysis of possible leverage points available instruments and involved actors shows that there remains a large additional potential

sustainable energy planning leapfrogging the energy poverty gap in africa abstract the present paper introduces the results of a spatial economic analysis that identifies the least cost rural electrification options that can bring the persistent energy poverty to an end in sub saharan africa the rationale behind the analysis is that the applicable energy technologies have gone through fundamental changes and these have profound effects on the competitiveness of the various options the least cost distributed generation options are calculated for each geographical location for mini hydro off grid pv and diesel generators options and it is compared to the electricity grid extension the methodology presented in this manuscript organises the scarcely available energy related local and regional geo information into comprehensible maps the set of tools presented and the results based on those analyses can support decision and policy makers to plan for the least cost rural electrification options while also adapting to the most effective way to reduce energy poverty this can help in the national rural electrification plans by delineating which communities cannot be reached by existing grid without excessive extension costs and gives the alternative distributed generation option

financing led solar home systems in developing countries abstract about 1 4 billion people around the world still do not have access to the regular electricity it is estimated that roughly 85 of the people without electricity live in rural semi urban or remote rural areas of the sub saharan africa and south asia although grid expansion is a vital objective of several developing countries and could be a long term solution the remoteness isolation low electricity demand of many rural communities high investment cost of grid expansion make them very unlikely to be reached by the extension of the power grid consequently the off grid generation systems seem to be the most suited alternative to provide the electricity services to these isolated rural communities solar home systems shss with light emitting diode led lamps are considered to be cost effective and robust decentralized option for rural electrification two financing schemes fee for service and micro credit system ownership are primarily important for acquiring the shss by the rural population however high upfront cost of shss and absence of payment flexibility is deterring the penetration into larger market of lower income group rural population non availability of facile finance to rural population at the grass root level is the major barrier inhibiting the widespread adoption of solar powered lighting systems micro finance institutions mfis can be useful to address the gap between the high initial upfront cost of shs and low paying capacity of rural households by providing flexible and affordable credit the one stop shop model based on a single micro energy provider who provides the services of finances supply of standardized shss and after sale energy services is crucial the success of the shs program depends on the satisfactory technical performance an adequate financing infrastructure responsive after sales support and the extent to which it can fulfill the needs of the end users of having grid quality energy

financing investments in renewable energy the impacts of policy design abstract the costs of electric power projects utilizing renewable energy technologies rets are highly sensitive to financing terms consequently as the electricity industry is restructured and new renewables policies are created it is important for policymakers to consider the impacts of renewables policy design on ret financing this paper reviews the power plant financing process for renewable energy projects estimates the impact of financing terms on levelized energy costs and provides insights to policymakers on the important nexus between renewables policy design and financing we review five case studies of renewable energy policies and find that one of the key reasons that ret policies are not more effective is that project development and financing processes are frequently ignored or misunderstood when designing and implementing renewable energy policies the case studies specifically show that policies that do not provide long term stability or that have negative secondary impacts on investment decisions will increase financing costs sometimes dramatically reducing the effectiveness of the program within u s electricity restructuring proceedings new renewable energy policies are being created and restructuring itself is changing the way rets are financed as these new policies are created and implemented it is essential that policymakers acknowledge the financing difficulties faced by renewables developers and pay special attention to the impacts of renewables policy design on financing as shown in this paper a renewables policy that is carefully designed can reduce renewable energy costs dramatically by providing revenue certainty that will in turn reduce financing risk premiums

financing low carbon energy access in africa modern energy access in africa is critical to meeting a wide range of developmental challenges including poverty reduction and the millennium development goals mdgs despite having a huge amount and variety of energy resources modern energy access in the continent is abysmal especially sub saharan africa only about 31 of the sub saharan african population have access to electricity while traditional biomass energy accounts for over 80 of energy consumption in many sub saharan african countries with energy use per capita among the lowest in the world there is no doubt that africa will need to increase its energy consumption to drive economic growth and human development africa also faces a severe threat from global climate change with vulnerabilities in several key areas or sectors in the continent including agriculture water supply energy etc low carbon development provides opportunities for african countries to improve and expand access to modern energy services while also building low emission and climate resilient economies however access to finance from different sources will be critical in achieving these objectives this paper sets out to explore the financial instruments available for low carbon energy access in africa including the opportunities markets and risks in low carbon energy investments in the continent

the uniqueness of the energy security justice and governance problem this article argues that among all policy fields exhibiting externalities of a global scale energy stands out on four dimensions vertical complexity horizontal complexity higher entailed costs and stronger path dependency these structural attributes are at odds with contemporary key challenges of energy security energy justice and low carbon energy transition with regard to the latter energy governance challenges occur related to unclear levels of authority and weak resilience this has implications for energy scholarship specifically relating to the political economy of energy transitions discussions about common pool resources systems analysis and other neighboring disciplines

introduction to the special issue urban energy governance local actions capacities and politics introduction to a special issue showing how there is much to be gained for deeper understandings of energy policy from a specifically urban analysis of rationales forms and repercussions of energy systems in transition the special issue offers an in depth examination of the variety of urban responses to quite distinctive and sometimes competing energy related challenges

barriers and opportunities of using the clean development mechanism to advance renewable energy development in china studying the barriers and opportunities of using clean development mechanism cdm to advance renewable energy deployment in china has a practical significance to achieve its ambitious renewable energy plan which affects the global efforts to curb carbon emission this paper analyses the role of cdm in promoting renewable energy development in china by reviewing the cdm activities especially renewable energy cdm activities in china there are three barriers to utilizing cdm for renewable energy deployment namely the dilemma of additionality lower proportional certified emission reduction credit revenues on the investment and the lack of incentive for technology transfer whereas the opportunities of using cdm in promoting renewable energy development include the international carbon market redirection to renewable energy chinese renewable energy boom driven by a series of effective energy policies and additional finance from cdm supporting chinese renewable energy development based on the study on the barriers and opportunities the article considers that cdm is an indispensable incentive and a viable choice to promote renewable energy deployment in china crown copyright c 2010 published by elsevier ltd all rights reserved

energy for sustainable development a case of developing countries abstract today there are 1 4 billion people around the world that lack access to electricity some 85 of them in rural areas without additional dedicated policies by 2030 the number of people drops but only to 1 2 billion some 15 of the world s population still lack access the majority of them living in sub saharan africa the number of people relying on the traditional use of biomass is projected to rise from 2 7 billion today to 2 8 billion in 2030 addressing these inequities depends upon international recognition that the projected situation is intolerable a commitment to effect the necessary change and setting targets and indicators to monitor progress a new financial institutional and technological framework is required as is capacity building in order to dramatically scale up access to modern energy services at the local and regional levels in this paper we discussed the energy situation of the developing countries for sustainable development

renewable energy in south africa potentials barriers and options for support the challenge of transforming entire economies is enormous even more so if a country is as fossil fuel based and emission intensive as south africa however in an increasingly carbon constrained world and already now facing climate change impacts south africa has to reduce greenhouse gas emissions intensity soon and decidedly the south african electricity sector is a vital part of the economy and at the same time contributes most to the emissions problem first steps have been taken by the south african government to enhance energy efficiency and promote renewable energy however they fail to show large scale effects this paper seeks to identify the relevant barriers to renewable energy investments and based on experience from other countries provide policy recommendations the major barrier identified in the paper is based on the economics of renewable energy technologies i e their cost and risk structures two main factors in investment planning as a solution the south african government introduced several renewable energy support measures such as a feed in tariff the paper discusses the potential and possible shortcomings of this and other existing support schemes and identifies complementing measures on a national scale

allocation distribution and scale towards an economics that is efficient just and sustainable abstract the practical policy of issuing tradeable permits for depletion and pollution requires for its implementation the clear separation of the three basic economic goals of efficient allocation equitable distribution and sustainable scale economic theory needs to catch up with policy in recognizing that scale issues cannot be reduced to either allocation or distribution

community based electric micro grids can contribute to rural development evidence from kenya summary in this paper we clarify the mechanisms through which rural electrification can contribute to rural development through a detailed case study analysis of a community based electric micro grid in rural kenya we demonstrate that access to electricity enables the use of electric equipment and tools by small and micro enterprises resulting in significant improvement in productivity per worker 100 200 depending on the task at hand and in a corresponding growth in income levels in the order of 20 70 depending on the product made access to electricity simultaneously enables and improves the delivery of social and business services from a wide range of village level infrastructure e g schools markets and water pumps while improving the productivity of agricultural activities we find that increased productivity and growth in revenues within the context of better delivery of social and business support services contribute to achieving higher social and economic benefits for rural communities we also demonstrate that when local electricity users have an ability to charge and enforce cost reflective tariffs and when electricity consumption is closely linked to productive uses that generate incomes cost recovery is feasible 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the economic value of transmission lines and the implications for planning models abstract many connections between economic efficiency regulation the environment and energy markets are evident in the planning for transmission upgrades in an electricity network transmission owners have to make decisions about investing in new assets while facing uncertainty in the generation plans regulatory and environmental constraints and current system endowments in this paper we demonstrate an analytical method for determining the economic value of individual transmission lines in a meshed network by calculating the total welfare effects for the system while many regulators believe that traditional congestion rents provide the correct incentives for investing in transmission upgrades we show that the uncertainty in system conditions breaks down this paradigm the analysis uses an existing security constrained optimal power flow scopf model and a test network to demonstrate how the method can be used to determine the welfare effects of changing the capacity of selected transmission lines the results show that a substantial portion of the economic benefits for an individual line may come from maintaining system reliability when equipment failures occur furthermore these benefits can change dramatically when inherently intermittent sources of renewable generation are added to a network and the changes in benefits are not captured effectively by changes in the expected congestion rents

understanding the political economy and key drivers of energy access in addressing national energy access priorities and policies abstract globally 1 5 billion people lack access to electricity and nearly 3 billion lack access to modern cooking energy options of the world s energy poor 95 are in asia and sub saharan africa within asia almost 80 of electricity deprived and 86 of biomass dependent populations are in the big 5 countries bangladesh china india indonesia and pakistan in this paper we discuss the broad contours of the political economy of energy access in these countries the political economy is assessed through an examination of three sustainability objectives accessibility of physical infrastructure energy service delivery and conformance to social goals the key areas of concern include emphasis on supply driven grid electricity vested power dynamics favouring affluent and urban areas unreliability of energy service provision and misdirected and misappropriated subsidies the above mentioned issues are responsible for limiting accelerated achievement of universal energy access in the big 5 countries and need to be addressed through innovative approaches the paper emphasizes the need for firm commitments policy convergence and the implementation of pro poor equitable energy policies through a broad based energy framework of bench marked technology neutral energy provisioning that ensures reliability and equity it highlights the need for reorienting of the subsidy regime and incorporating energy service delivery indicators in monitoring and reporting mechanisms

power sector renewable energy integration for expanding access to electricity in sub saharan africa abstract a looming energy supply crisis in sub saharan africa ssa raises concerns about a long lasting energy shortage this energy crisis is expected to persist for an indefinite period in the region unless immediate actions are taken to reverse the trend although global aspiration to reduce greenhouse gas ghg emissions into the atmosphere is high such desire is low in ssa regional stakeholders are more worried about increasing power generation capacity to enhance better access to different sorts of development to progress in line with advanced patterns of energy development globally to increase the availability of electrical energy and to sustain emissions reductions exploitation of local renewable energy re resources is inevitable consequently this paper presents a comprehensive review of re integration for expanding access to electricity in ssa the review covers the sustainability of re resources in ssa the regional status of re applications and the necessity of re power generation integration planning from a management aspect finally the benefits of re integration into the power sector of ssa and some conceptual challenges affecting its integration in the region are highlighted

transaction analysis in deregulated power systems using game theory the electric power industry is in transition to a deregulated marketplace for power transactions in this environment all power transactions are made based on price rather than cost a regional power pool is noted as the most straightforward path to a deregulated electricity marketplace however many questions remain unanswered regarding the economics of power pool participation in a deregulated energy marketplace participants are interested in maximizing their own profits regardless of the system wide profits it is perceived that competition will reduce the price of electricity for retail customers however the key issue for participants is related with the price definition to remain competitive in this paper the authors use game theory to simulate the decision making process for defining offered prices in a deregulated environment the outcome of this study may be used by power pool coordinators to discourage unfair coalitions a modified ieee 30 bus power system is used as a deregulated power pool to illustrate the main features of the proposed method

solar power investment in north africa reducing perceived risks abstract climate protection targets for mid century imply a need to scale up european renewable power production to a level that may exceed the available land area within europe s borders one attractive solution from a cost and feasibility perspective is the development of large scale concentrating solar power plants in north africa and the middle east however these developments are seen by many people as risky in terms of both european energy security and in terms of the risks faced by project developers in this paper we focus on the latter of theses issues first we examine the risks that project developers are most concerned about and identify these as being associated not with terrorism and rogue state behavior but rather with corruption and inefficient and unpredictable bureaucracies second we identify a range of policy approaches that can reduce these risks either by mitigating their consequences or by seeking to eliminate their underlying causes third we investigate the financial benefits of taking such steps to reduce or eliminate investment risks we find the potential savings to european electricity consumers to exceed 200 billion

connective power solar electrification and social change in kenya summary market based rural electrification with solar energy is increasingly common in developing countries this article revolves around three main claims about solar electrification in kenya s unsubsidized market 1 the benefits of solar electrification are captured primarily by the rural middle class 2 solar electricity plays a modest role in supporting economically productive and education related activities but connective applications such as television radio and cellular telephone charging often receive a higher priority 3 solar electrification is more closely tied to increased television use the expansion of markets more rural urban communication and other processes that increase rural urban connectivity than to poverty alleviation sustainable development or the appropriate technology movement

renewable energy gathers steam in south africa abstract south africa s renewable energy independent power producers procurement programme the rei4p is an extensive initiative to install 17 8 gw of electricity generation capacity from renewables wind solar biomass biogas and hydropower over the period 2012 2030 although at the outset the rei4p seemed an expensive option designed only to deflect criticism of south africa s high carbon footprint and excessive dependence on coal based electricity generation the escalating costs of the latter the rapidly falling costs of photovoltaic and wind power and the increasingly competitive bidding process of the rei4p have changed this prospect at the conclusion of round three the weighted cost of energy has reached a 23 discount to the cost of new coal based generation and a 28 discount to global renewable energy prices the bidders commitments to local employment creation have similarly increased from 11 to 18 jobs mw the programme is now well placed to deliver on a broad range of objectives including regional development and black economic empowerment however maximum benefit from the rei4p will not be secured without some revision to aspects of the bidding and procurement process more specifically the local content provisions need to be tightened to drive higher levels of local manufacturing

an ecological monetary theory abstract while money is critical to the modern world ecological economics does not have a theory of money that is applicable to its theoretical framework and policy prescriptions accordingly the field often defers to an orthodox conception of money that is historically inaccurate and ontologically inconsistent the dualized nature of western philosophy informs orthodoxy by defining money according its function as a medium of exchange this conceptualization creates logical and historical problems that can be addressed by exploring an interdisciplinary literature that defines money according to its nature as a social relation expressed in a unit of account this paper develops an ecological monetary theory that is simultaneously rooted in a socio historical understanding of money s nature and in an ontology of social and ecological embeddedness such a theory provides ecological economists and others concerned with social and ecological equity with a framework from which to address monetary systems and policy

enabling private sector investment in microgrid based rural electrification in developing countries a review access to electricity is widely recognized as an important factor for economic and social development low rates of access particularly in remote rural areas in regions such as sub saharan africa south asia and southeast asia have led developing nations and international organizations to set ambitious goals to expand the reach of electricity decentralized solutions such as microgrids have been proposed as cost effective solutions to reaching communities located far from central grid infrastructure lack of capital from public and donor sources has severely impeded achieving access goals leading to calls for greater private sector participation in electrification activities however due to the high level of risk associated with decentralized electrification projects in low income areas marginal expected returns on investment and a lack of clear and effective public policy the private sector has not shown significant interest in participating in such projects the purpose of this paper is to review barriers to private sector participation in decentralized electrification projects and to identify solutions that have been implemented and proposed to overcome these barriers the barriers discussed include unsecure revenue streams inability to finance projects and long term project risks such as grid encroachment the range of interventions and business models reviewed include methods to secure reliable demand subsidy models risk guarantees and different revenue models this paper does not include an analysis of the effectiveness of the different interventions described future research should evaluate the relative costs and benefits of these interventions in order to provide robust policy guidance to decision makers in developing countries

addressing the renewable energy financing gap in africa to promote universal energy access integrated renewable energy financing in malawi abstract the sustainable energy for all initiative is a global initiative launched by the united nations secretary general in 2012 with a goal of providing universal access to modern energy services by 2030 to achieve this goal substantial financial and technological investments will be required at a rate far exceeding historical levels sub saharan africa has a 30 5 electrification rate and policy reform issues to improve electrification have been poorly implemented thereby sprinkling doubt as to whether the region would be able to achieve 100 access to electricity for all by the year 2030 sub saharan africa faces a tough challenge in order to achieve universal access to modern energy services since the region fails to attract energy sector investments there is also a general perception that the region contributes very little to global greenhouse gas emissions hence offers few opportunities to reduce these emissions consequently missing out on attracting climate finance projects a guarantee of power purchase has been shown to attract energy sector investments however guarantees of power purchases such as feed in tariffs are experiencing slow market growth in developing countries because of a range of technical regulatory and financial barriers using malawi as a case study of a developing country this review provides a perspective from a sub saharan africa least developed country as to the various electrification renewable energy deployment and climate change management challenges that still require urgent attention this study shows that despite the perceived regulatory and financial challenges malawi can integrate and use a combination of adapted price guarantee schemes cross subsidies and environmental taxes in order to support initiatives aimed at supporting the country s development of renewable energy sources and hence indirectly support the sustainable energy for all initiative

scaling up finance for off grid renewable energy the role of aggregation and spatial diversification in derisking investments in mini grids for rural electrification in india abstract today about 1 1 billion people lack access to electricity worldwide it is estimated that annual investments of 48 billion usd are required to meet the target of the sustainable development goals of providing universal electricity access by 2030 the need for private investments to meet this target is evident but small scale electrification projects are often unattractive for private investors due to unfavourable risk return profiles and small investment volumes both issues can potentially be addressed by aggregating projects into diversified portfolios an approach commonly used by investors in several contexts but little investigated in the context of rural electrification this paper addresses the question of how spatial diversity in a portfolio can be used to reduce investment risks and increase investment volumes through a mixed method approach involving three steps i identification and classification of investment risks for renewable energy mini grid projects ii qualitative analysis of the correlations between investment risks for different projects through interviews and iii quantitative estimation of the cost of capital and derisking effects of spatial diversification strategies for an experimental portfolio in india we discuss the implications for policymakers in promoting and facilitating the ability of private sector investors to aggregate small scale electrification investments

rural electrification and employment in poor countries evidence from nicaragua summary this paper shows that rural electrification is associated with big changes in the time use of men and women in nicaragua even in the absence of labor saving appliances electricity is shown to increase the propensity of rural nicaraguan women to work outside the home by about 23 but to have no impact on male employment these findings suggest significant potential benefits to rural electrification that are not generally captured in cost benefit analyses such as greater women s earnings and reduced deforestation

global policy of rural electrification energy poverty and lack of electricity in the rural area exacerbate the poverty of the developing countries the sustainable renewable technologies can be considered as efficient tools to reduce energy poverty whenever they are conducted based on an appropriate policy electricity can improve the human s lifestyle by increasing the level of health education welfare and technology currently sub sahara africa with only 14 2 of rural electrification has the first rank in the world with lowest access to electricity in that region around 585 million citizens has almost no access to electricity the present study focuses on the general global policies to electrify the rural areas in this regard variety of plans and programs conducted by governmental and private institutes are investigated in the year 2011 the international energy agency iea has developed three global strategies based on the world energy market that defines the overall world energy approach in the present work different technologies for rural electrification are taken into account in two major categories of grid connected and off grid systems furthermore based on sustainable development with emphasis on environmental consideration the feasibility of electrification by using different types of renewable energies such as solar biomass hydro wind and wave have been studied despite reliability of grid connection results indicate that renewable energy sources are the best choice especially in areas far from grid connections challenges between financial institutes and executive agencies result in resource management and technology development in order to overcome existing barriers and issues

the need for improved financial reporting of a developing country energy utility abstract some consideration has been given to regulatory and institutional reforms to facilitate sustainable development in electricity usage in papua new guinea but little attention has been paid to bringing about full compliance of financial reporting expectations of the country s main energy utility examining documentary evidence of the audit reports of the auditor general s office of papua new guinea this study considers the financial reporting compliance of png power for the period 2007 2013 and the means by which compliant reporting may be improved the results of the study reveal that the financial statements of png power are late and receive disclaimers of opinion from the auditor general s office which suggest that png power s stakeholders are not receiving accurate and reliable financial information to make informed decisions about sustainable development of electricity usage and planning in papua new guinea the study reveals that it would take little resources to improve png power s reporting which in turn could enhance national energy policy decision making and energy utility accountability

rural electrification policy and institutional linkages some of the problems that have besieged rural electrification in most developing countries include inadequate policies weak institutional frameworks and limited financing in the last two decades governments in developing countries have been making various efforts both at the policy level and in financing to facilitate increased levels of rural electrification however the introduction of market based reforms in the power sector in the last decade has affected the institutional and financing arrangements for rural electrification the reforms have also affected the rate of electrification and affordability of electricity there is need therefore to establish the extent to which the reforms have affected access and affordability of electricity in rural areas and to develop appropriate policy and the supporting institutional structures to align rural electrification with reformed power sectors it is cardinal to establish how privatised and commercialised power companies in a reformed power sector could contribute to rural electrification and the role of governments and government agents in facilitating expanded access to electricity in rural areas

financing off grid sustainable energy access for the poor this paper examines the role of public instruments in promoting private finance to achieve off grid sustainable energy access renewable energy technologies are increasingly becoming the cheapest solutions for off grid energy access the dramatic uptake of mobile phones in developing countries shows how quickly decentralized services can develop on a commercial basis under the right conditions and raises the prospect that private finance could also drive decentralized energy access for the poor indeed there are already a number of instances of clean energy solutions such as solar portable lights household biogas units or solar home systems that have managed to scale up through leveraging private finance however the experience gained from first generation market development projects show that in almost all cases significant public resources have been necessary to increase the affordability of clean energy technologies provide access to financing for the poor and remove non economic barriers such public interventions may be funded by international public finance domestic budgets and carbon finance despite mounting fiscal constraints facing governments worldwide the emergence of new sources of climate finance and the political momentum in support of energy subsidy reforms as well as new programming modalities offer opportunities to leverage additional resources to achieve universal energy access by 2030

a critical review of china s rapidly developing renewable energy and energy efficiency policies renewable energy and energy efficiency reee policies have far reaching implications for energy security climate change economic competitiveness pollution and human livelihood for these reasons reee has become a national priority for the chinese government particularly since 2005 this paper aims to critically review china s reee policies in six sectors electricity industry transportation buildings and local government in addition to examining the progress china has made in the development and implementation of reee policies this review also identifies limitations and room for improvement finally five policy recommendations are presented

the effects of rural electrification on employment new evidence from south africa this paper estimates the impact of electrification on employment growth by analyzing south africa s mass roll out of electricity to rural households using several new data sources and two different identification strategies an instrumental variables strategy and a fixed effects approach i find that electrification significantly raises female employment within five years this new infrastructure appears to increase hours of work for men and women while reducing female wages and increasing male earnings several pieces of evidence suggest that household electrification raises employment by releasing women from home production and enabling microenterprises migration behavior may also be affected jel h54 l94

access to electricity in small island developing states of the pacific issues and challenges abstract energy poverty is widespread in small island developing states sids of the pacific it is estimated that 70 percent of pacific islander households do not have access to electricity which is equivalent to access rates in sub saharan africa and slightly below the average for low income countries pacific sids face unique challenges in expanding access to electricity given that their populations are spread across tens of thousands of islands governments and development partners in pacific sids continue to prioritise development of electricity grids as is evident in ongoing subsidisation of grid based power consumption and the establishment of ambitious grid based renewable energy targets this paper argues that traditional approaches to rural electrification which prioritise grid extension are not suited to the pacific islands region increased funding should be directed by both governments and development partners towards rural electrification especially in off grid areas where isolated systems are more appropriate institutional reform is also important regulatory reform is needed for power utilities to extend electricity grids into rural areas institutional arrangements that facilitate the sustainable operation and maintenance of off grid systems also need to be established past donor and government funded off grid rural electrification projects have rarely been sustainable alternative approaches involving payment of output based subsidies to energy service companies are worth exploring although will only succeed where sound regulatory arrangements are in place

the governance of clean energy in india the clean development mechanism cdm and domestic energy politics this paper explores the ways in which clean energy is being governed in india it does so in order to improve our understanding of the potential and limitations of carbon finance in supporting lower carbon energy transitions and to strengthen our appreciation of the role of politics in enabling or frustrating such endeavors in particular we emphasize the importance of politics and the nature of india s political economy in understanding the development of energy sources and technologies defined as clean both by the united nations clean development mechanism cdm and leading international actors by considering the broad range of institutions that exert formal and informal political influence over how the benefits and costs of the cdm are distributed the paper highlights shortcomings in the narrow way in which cdm governance has been conceptualized to date this approach goes beyond analysis of technocratic aspects of governance often reduced to a set of institutional design issues in order to appreciate the political nature of the trade offs that characterize debates about india s energy future and the relations of power which will determine how and on whose terms they are resolved

institutional barriers to a perfect policy a case study of the senegalese rural electrification plan abstract this paper investigates the political and institutional factors that have influenced the success of the senegalese rural electrification action plan plan d action senegalais d electrification rurale paser paser is of interest because its innovative design attracted extensive offers of finance from donors and independent power providers however it has had limited effect on electrification levels this paper examines paser s progress and problems in detail with the aim of informing rural electrification policy internationally an extensive literature review was combined with 26 semi structured stakeholder interviews to produce a snapshot of the plan s status after its first decade of operation paser s experiences are compared with other reform based rural electrification initiatives across sub saharan africa paser has faced significant institutional and political barriers with delays arising from organisational opposition inconsistent ministerial support protracted consultations and the inherent challenges of implementing an innovative policy framework in a country with limited institutional capacity the development of human and institutional capacity has been compromised by inconsistent political commitment such experiences mirror those of electrification initiatives across sub saharan africa whilst paser s successes in garnering external support and fundraising are noteworthy and won praise from early reviews in terms of delivery the plan has failed to resolve common institutional barriers

the landscape of energy initiatives in sub saharan africa going for systemic change or reinforcing the status quo abstract this article examines recent interventions by major players in sub saharan africa s energy sector and asks whether they acknowledge or seek to address energy as a complex problem and energy systems as socio technical systems several scholars have begun advocating the socio technical approach to energy by noting that the mainstream conceptualization of energy challenges in strictly technological or economic terms does not capture the complexity and inertia inherent to energy systems moreover the article also seeks to examine how well have recent interventions integrated pro poor and low carbon concerns two of the major tenets of un s sustainable development goal 7 findings suggest that initiatives studied take only partial consideration of key aspects of a socio technical approach to the energy problem nonetheless the initiatives have taken on board pro poor and low carbon concerns to a certain extent two main policy implications are drawn from this study a continued focus on status quo approaches has the potential to generate investment inefficiencies and an effective low carbon transition will require a broader discussions about the types of lifestyles people in sub saharan africa aspire to

the economics of renewable energy expansion in rural sub saharan africa accelerating development in sub saharan africa will require massive expansion of access to electricity currently reaching only about one third of households this paper explores how essential economic development might be reconciled with the need to keep carbon emissions in check the authors develop a geographically explicit framework and use spatial modeling and cost estimates from recent engineering studies to determine where stand alone renewable energy generation is a cost effective alternative to centralized grid supply the results suggest that decentralized renewable energy will likely play an important role in expanding rural energy access but it will be the lowest cost option for a minority of households in africa even when likely cost reductions over the next 20 years are considered decentralized renewables are competitive mostly in remote and rural areas while grid connected supply dominates denser areas where the majority of households reside these findings underscore the need to de carbonize the fuel mix for centralized power generation as it expands in africa

the prospects for local private investment in tanzania s rural electrification abstract the aim of this paper is to investigate whether local investors are capable of establishing and managing power sector enterprises in tanzania the paper then examines the extent to which this capability could be harnessed to enhance rural electrification especially of the poor the data used were obtained from interviews of power sector stakeholders three major conclusions arise from the findings first it seems that substantial local ownership is possible in small power enterprises but is limited in the larger ones second available evidence suggests that the terms and conditions of local financial institutions are major constraining factors on the ability of local investors to mobilise finance locally third it appears that on the overall technical managerial and professional capabilities needed to set up operate and manage independent power production ipp and independent power distribution ipd enterprises exist locally

biofuel developments in mozambique update and analysis of policy potential and reality abstract climate change rising oil prices and concerns about future energy supplies have contributed to a growing interest in using biomass for energy purposes several studies have highlighted the biophysical potential of biofuel production on the african continent and analysts see mozambique as one of the most promising african countries favorable growing conditions and the availability of land water and labor are mentioned as major drivers behind this potential moreover the potential of biofuel production to generate socio economic benefits is reflected in the government s policy objectives for the development of the sector such as reducing fuel import dependency and creating rural employment this article provides an overview of biofuel developments in mozambique and explores to what extent reality matches the suggested potential in the country we conclude that biofuel developments mainly take place in areas near good infrastructure processing and storage facilities where there is skilled labor available and access to services and goods moreover our analysis shows the need to timely harmonize current trends in biofuel developments with the government s policy objectives as the majority of existing and planned projects are not focusing on remote rural areas and in absence of domestic markets principally target external markets

public policy influence on renewable energy investments a panel data study across oecd countries this paper examines the impact of public policy measures on renewable energy re investments in electricity generating capacity made by institutional investors using a novel combination of datasets and a longitudinal research design we investigate the influence of different policy measures in a sample of oecd countries to suggest an effective policy mix which could tackle failures in the market for clean energy the results call for technology specific policies which take into account actual market conditions and technology maturity to improve the conditions for institutional investments advisable policy instruments include economic and fiscal incentives such as feed in tariffs fit especially for less mature technologies additionally market based instruments such as greenhouse gas ghg emission trading systems for mature technologies should be included these policy measures directly impact the risk and return structure of re projects supplementing these with regulatory measures such as codes and standards e g rps and long term strategic planning could further strengthen the context for re investments

the main support mechanisms to finance renewable energy development considering that the major part of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide there is a global concern aimed at reducing carbon emissions additionally major consumer countries are looking for alternati

do generation firms in restructured electricity markets have incentives to support social welfare improving transmission investments this paper examines the incentives that generation firms have in restructured electricity markets for supporting long term transmission investments in particular we study whether generation firms which arguably play a dominant role in the restructured electricity markets have the incentives to fund or support incremental social welfare improving transmission investments we examine this question in a two node network and explore how such incentives are affected by the ownership of financial transmission rights ftrs by generation firms in the analyzed two node network we show both i that the net exporter generation firm has the correct incentives to increase the transmission capacity incrementally up to a certain level and ii that although a policy that allocates ftrs to the net exporter generation firm can be desirable from a social point of view such a policy would dilute the net importer generation firm s incentives to support transmission expansion moreover if all ftrs were allocated or auctioned off to the net exporter generation firm then it is possible to increase both consumer surplus and social welfare while keeping the net exporter generation firm revenue neutral

biofuels development in sub saharan africa are the policies conducive this paper analyses national regional and international biofuels policies and strategies to assess whether these policies promote or undermine the development of biofuels sector in africa despite having a huge comparative advantage in land labour and good climatic conditions favourable for the growing of energy crops few countries in sub saharan africa have included biofuels strategies in their energy or national development policies further results show that while developed countries commit huge financial resources for research technology development and the provision of tax incentives to both producers and consumers there is little government support for promoting biofuels in africa although the consequences of biofuels on food supply remain uncertain the mandatory blending of biofuels with fossil fuels by industrialized countries will create demand for land in africa for the growing of energy crops for biofuels this paper urgently calls upon national governments in sub saharan africa to develop appropriate strategies and regulatory frameworks to harness the potential economic opportunities from biofuels sector development while protecting the environment and rural communities from the adverse effects of land alienation from the mainstream agriculture towards the growing of energy crops for biofuels at the expense of traditional food crops

economic criteria for planning transmission investment in restructured electricity markets from an economic perspective a common criterion for assessing the merits of a transmission investment is its impacts on social welfare the underlying assumption in using this criterion is that side payments may be used to distribute the social gains among all market players in reality however since the impacts of an electricity transmission project on different players may vary such side payments are rather difficult to implement this paper focuses on different economic criteria that should be considered when planning electricity transmission investments we propose an electricity transmission investment assessment methodology that is capable of evaluating the economic impacts on the various effected stakeholders and account for strategic responses that could enhance or impede the investment s objectives we formulate transmission planning as an optimization problem under alternative conflicting objectives and investigate the policy implications of divergent expansion plans resulting from the planner s level of anticipation of strategic responses we find that optimal transmission expansion plans may be very sensitive to supply and demand parameters we also show that the transmission investments have significant distributional impact creating acute conflicts of interests among market participants we use a 32 bus representation of the main chilean grid to illustrate our results

the power of tv cable television and women s status in india cable and satellite television have grown rapidly throughout the developing world the availability of cable and satellite television exposes viewers to new information about the outside world which may affect individual attitudes and behaviors this paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural india using a three year individual level panel dataset we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in womens status we find significant increases in reported autonomy decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference we also find increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility primarily via increased birth spacing the effects are large equivalent in some cases to about five years of education in the cross section and move gender attitudes of individuals in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas we argue that the results are not driven by pre existing differential trends these results have important policy implications as india and other countries attempt to decrease bias against women authors

access and affordability of electricity in developing countries summary a key objective of developing countries is to provide affordable access to modern energy services in order to support economic and social development the paper presents a number of arguments for why and in which way energy access and affordability can play a key role in national development programs and in achieving the millennium development goals approaches for measuring accessibility and affordability are presented drawing on case studies of bangladesh brazil and south africa countries with different rates of electrification affordability of using electricity is examined in relation to the energy expenditure burden for households and time consumption conclusions focus on lessons learned and recommendations for implementing policies instruments and regulatory measures to tackle the challenge of affordability

implications of higher global food prices for poverty in low income countries in many poor countries the recent increases in prices of staple foods raise the real incomes of those selling food many of whom are relatively poor while hurting net food consumers many of whom are also relatively poor the impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects and can only be determined by looking at real world data results using household data for ten observations on nine low income countries show that the short run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country but that poverty increases are much more frequent and larger than poverty reductions the recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low income countries substantially

explaining the differential distribution of clean development mechanism projects across host countries the clean development mechanism cdm of the kyoto protocol represents an opportunity to involve all developing countries in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also promoting sustainable development to date however the majority of cdm projects have gone to emerging markets such as china india brazil and mexico while very few least developed countries have hosted projects this paper investigates the differential distribution of cdm activities across countries we develop a conceptual model for project profitability which helps to identify potential country level determinants of cdm activity these potential determinants are employed as explanatory variables in regression analysis to explain the actual distribution of projects human capital and greenhouse gas emission levels influenced which countries have hosted projects and the amount of certified emission reductions cer created countries that offered growing markets for cdm co products such as electricity were more likely to be cdm hosts while economies with higher carbon intensity levels had greater cer production these findings work against the least developed countries and help to explain their lack of cdm activity

rural electrification in zambia a policy and institutional analysis abstract zambia is well endowed with hydropower and other energy resources which could facilitate production of electricity for both urban and rural areas of the country the country has an installed electricity generation capacity of 1786 mw and undeveloped hydropower potential of over 6000 mw in the last few years demand has been growing and it is anticipated to outstrip supply in 2008 the load growth is attributed to increased mining activities and development of the industrial base the country is also endowed with abundant natural resources such as arable land water minerals and wildlife with the available resource base electricity along with other social and economic infrastructure such as roads and telecommunications could facilitate increased economic activities in rural areas electricity could be used for crop irrigation agro processing small scale mining and to facilitate tourism however rural electrification re faces many challenges such as long distances from existing power stations to targeted rural areas low population densities high poverty levels and low skills availability these and other factors have contributed to continued low levels of access to electricity in rural areas of the country measures so far undertaken to facilitate access to electricity in rural areas of zambia include the adoption of a new national energy policy nep in 1994 with regard to the electricity sector and re in particular the nep was aimed at facilitating increased access by liberalising and restructuring the electricity market and promoting the use of low cost technologies and decentralised renewable energies to facilitate implementation of the new policy the government established a legal and institutional framework by enacting new legislation namely the electricity act and the energy regulation act in 1995 the electricity act provided for liberalisation and regulation of the electricity sector while the energy regulation act provided for the establishment of an independent regulator so as to stimulate private sector participation and efficiency in addition a rural electrification fund ref and associated administration mechanism was established in 1995 however re continued to experience many challenges in 2003 the government enacted the rural electrification act leading to the establishment of an agency dedicated to re this paper analyses the policy legal and institutional measures implemented in zambia and assesses their potential or effectiveness to tackle some of the challenges facing re in the country so as to increase access and affordability

a literature survey on energy growth nexus abstract this paper provides a survey of the recent progress in the literature of energy consumption economic growth and electricity consumption economic growth causality nexus the survey highlights that most empirical studies focus on either testing the role of energy electricity in stimulating economic growth or examining the direction of causality between these two variables although the positive role of energy on growth has become a stylized fact there are some methodological reservations about the results from these empirical studies a general observation from these studies is that the literature produced conflicting results and there is no consensus neither on the existence nor on the direction of causality between energy consumption electricity consumption and economic growth as a policy implication to avoid from conflicting and unreliable results the authors may use the autoregressive distributed lags bounds test two regime threshold co integration models panel data approach and multivariate models including new variables such as real gross fixed capital formation labor force carbon dioxide emissions population exchange rates interest rates etc thus the authors should focus more on the new approaches and perspectives rather than by employing usual methods based on a set of common variables for different countries and different intervals of time

securitization of residential solar photovoltaic assets costs risks and uncertainty abstract limited access to low cost financing is an impediment to high velocity technological diffusion and high grid penetration of solar photovoltaic pv technology securitization of solar assets provides a potential solution to this problem this paper assesses the viability of solar asset backed securities abs as a lower cost financing mechanism and identifies policies that could facilitate implementation of securitization first traditional solar financing is examined to provide a baseline for cost comparisons next the securitization process is modeled the model enables identification of several junctures at which risk and uncertainty influence costs next parameter values are assigned and used to generate cost estimates results show that under reasonable assumptions securitization of solar power purchase agreements ppa can significantly reduce project financing costs suggesting that securitization is a viable mechanism for improving the financing of pv projects the clear impediment to the successful launch of a solar abs is measuring and understanding the riskiness of underlying assets this study identifies three classes of policy intervention that lower the cost of abs by reducing risk or by improving the measurement of risk i standardization of contracts and the contracting process ii improved access to contract and equipment performance data and iii geographic diversification

firms operating under electricity constraints in developing countries many developing countries are unable to provide their industrial sectors with reliable electric power with the result that many enterprises must contend with an insufficient and unreliable supply of electricity because of these constraints enterprises often opt for self generation of electricity even though it is widely considered a second best solution this paper develops a theoretical model of investment behavior in remedial infrastructure in the presence of physical constraints it then illustrates the model s predictions using a large cross country sample of enterprises from the world bank enterprise survey database electricity intensive sectors in high outage countries are characterized by a significantly lower share of small firms