interpreting the evolution of the energy saving target allocation system in china 2006 13 a view of policy learning this paper examines how the efficacy of energy saving policies can be improved through learning effective allocation of energy saving targets is key to achieving china s reduction targets for energy intensity despite growing research interest in the energy saving target allocation system details regarding the logic and rationale behind the modifications to the system since the 11th fyp period remain unclear this paper contributes to the previous literature by applying the concept of policy learning to an analysis of how and from what sources the chinese government has learned to improve its energy saving target allocation system over the 2006 13 period our study finds that the chinese government has developed a distinct policy style of learning from multiple sources that involves three primary sources previous experience local practice and expert knowledge although the extant literature has previously identified these three sources of learning most of this literature has focused on only one or at most two sources of learning at any given time the uniqueness of policy learning in the energy saving target allocation system consists of the co existence of these three sources of learning in one case this learning oriented policy style is characterized by reflexivity which allows current policies to be adjusted in a timely manner in order to alleviate prospective risks

robust determinants of income inequality while economic theory suggests a wide range of potential determinants of income inequality there is little consensus regarding the most relevant ones such a lack of consensus reflects to an important extent the impact of model uncertainty using model averaging techniques specifically wals weighted average least squares to get at a robust set of determinants our results underscore the multiplicity of factors behind rising national level inequalities in the cross section the level of development and demographics as well as unemployment and globalization seem to be key drivers trade and financial globalization have asymmetric effects with trade integration associated with lower inequality and financial globalization with higher inequality financial deregulation and technological change seem to be important drivers of inequality particularly in advanced economies

clearing the air the costs and consequences of higher cafe standards and increased gasoline taxes abstract concerns about energy security and climate change have sparked legislators interest in reducing gasoline consumption by increasing corporate average fuel economy cafe standards using an empirically rich simulation model and cost estimates for anticipated fuel economy technologies we estimate annual costs of reducing long run gasoline consumption by 10 via a 3 8 miles per gallon increase in the standards and the potential cost savings from allowing manufacturers to buy and sell fuel economy credits maximum gasoline savings would be realized only after all existing vehicles were replaced or 14 years in our model a gasoline tax would produce greater immediate savings by encouraging people to drive less and eventually to choose more fuel efficient vehicles we demonstrate the advantage of a tax by comparing the cost of the higher cafe standards over the first 14 years against the cost of a gasoline tax that would save the same amount of gasoline over that time

research on the development of main policy instruments for improving building energy efficiency policy instrument is the key to drive improving energy efficiency in building sectors this paper presents the current development of bee policy instruments by examining their practices in seven selected countries and regions these policy instruments are classified into three groups the mandatory administration instrument the economic incentive instrument and the voluntary scheme instrument the developments of the three types of instruments are analyzed among the selected countries and regions from the perspectives of the number of policy instruments developed the development trend and the experiences gained in developing these instruments the study shows that different countries have made good progress in achieving better building energy efficiency through adopting different type of policy instruments the research reveals various experiences gained in the process of developing and implementing bee policy instruments from various countries

seasonal cointegration for monthly data abstract in this paper we propose an extension of the maximum likelihood seasonal cointegration procedure developed by johansen and schaumburg j economet 88 1999 310 for monthly time series we compute the finite sample critical values of the associated test statistics in monthly seasonal time series we also apply this seasonal cointegration procedure to the retails and stocks in us monthly manufacturing industrial data

estimates of energy subsidies in china and impact of energy subsidy reform abstract for a transitional economy such as china some energy subsidies are reasonable and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals however with rising energy prices and environmental concerns we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies energy demand supply fundamentals and climate change considerations energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use efficiency and the choice of fuel source this paper applies the price gap approach to estimate china s energy subsidies results indicate that china s energy subsidies amounted to cny 356 73 billion in 2007 equivalent to 1 43 of gdp subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors furthermore a cge model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables we conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment

a club convergence analysis of per capita energy consumption across australian regions and sectors we examine convergence in per capita energy consumption across nine sectors and seven states and territories in australia over the period 19902016 using the phillips sul club convergence approach we find evidence of multiple convergence clubs for aggregate energy consumption per capita and for energy consumption per capita in eight of the nine sectors with full club convergence in the case of electricity the presence of multiple equilibria for most sectors reflect that states with similar features in terms of climate economic activities and population size among others tend to exhibit similar energy consumption patterns our results highlight the need to tailor policies designed to reduce energy consumption in specific sectors to the consumption convergence paths unique to particular clusters of states

reducing rebound effect through fossil subsidies reform a comprehensive evaluation in china abstract china has committed a sharp reduction in its carbon intensity by 2020 and proposed to take integrated policy package including energy subsidy reform to achieve this goal while energy efficiency improvement is the key influencing factor for this goal its effectiveness is significantly determined by rebound effect energy subsidy as an economic regulation policy would significantly affect rebound effect to explore how china s fossil subsidies reform would affect rebound effect this study conducts a comprehensive evaluation based on a multi sector computable general equilibrium cge model rebound effects at different technological improvement levels are investigated and the impacts of different subsidies reform scenarios on mitigating rebound effects and on the whole economy is analyzed the results provide significant policy insights firstly rebound effect does exist in china larger for electricity than for primary energies secondly by removing fossil energy subsides the rebound effect would be effectively mitigated and removing all subsides would reduce the rebound effect most however it would bring significant negative impacts on the macro economy thirdly an integrated policy with removal of fossil energy subsidies and increment of clean energy subsidies would be more effective greatly reducing rebound effect and also bring benefits for both economy and environment our findings would be critical for china s low carbon policy making in the future

feed in tariff outlook in malaysia this paper aims to present the feed in tariff fit outlook in malaysia which is in the process of being enacted through a renewable energy re policy by the government of malaysia gom a brief in policies leading towards the re policy and the potential of each re sources under fit mechanism have been discussed the successful utilisation of re source in electricity generation and the fit implementation globally are positive indicators to implement fit in malaysia potentials of fit on biomass biogas and solid waste energy are currently very promising in malaysia but it is solar energy which is predicted to be the main re of the future surpassing all other res

fixed feed in tariff versus premium a review of the current spanish system a b s t r a c t since 1998 the spanish government established a feed in system where res e generators could choose between two alternatives fixed feed in tariff and premium nowadays all res e 1 can be sold in the electricity market getting an additional premium except for solar photovoltaic one important novelty established in 2007 is a cap and floor system for facilities under the premium option the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare these two alternative options fixed fit and premiums which coexist at the same time in spain describe the evolution of both systems and evaluate its performance the introduction of this support system in spain led to very good results in terms of res e deployment the main advantage of the premium option is that it is a scheme integrated in the electricity market one disadvantage is that it can occasionally lead to overcompensation one way to try to avoid it is to set a cap value in order to evaluate the performance of this dual support system not only res e deployment has been assessed but also the policy stability the adequacy of res e production to the electricity demand pattern and the changes in the investors behaviour

energy conservation through energy service companies empirical analysis from china abstract china s energy service companies escos have developed only modestly despite favorable political and market conditions we argue that with sophisticated market institutions still evolving in china trust based relations between escos and energy customers are essential for successful implementation of energy efficiency projects chinese escos who are predominantly small and private enterprises perform poorly in terms of trust building because they are disembedded from local business social and political networks we conclude that in the current institutional setting the esco model based on market relations has serious limitations and is unlikely to lead to large scale implementation of energy efficiency projects in china

the development of policy instruments in supporting low carbon governance in china abstract this paper examines the development of policy instruments that support the low carbon governance in china the instruments are analysed in five aspects in relation to the key policies in low carbon governance in china including energy conservation developing new energy reforestry developing circular economy and industry restructuring each aspect is discussed in three instrument groups which are 1 law and regulations 2 industry standard and 3 finance and taxation this research suggests that law enforcement for the new established laws should be further strengthened and stricter supervision systems should be in place to safeguard effective implementation of low carbon policies measures and standards especially for those energy condensed sectors more rigorous industry standards regarding energy efficiency should be considered to help eliminate outdated equipments in industries and promote the introduction of more climate friendly technologies the industrial standards should be given strong legal support in accountability in order to enforce their complete application once in operation new policies and instruments need to be introduced in order to reduce carbon print by landfill the backward law and industrial standards in china should be upgraded more regularly therefore to support the low carbon development strategy

energy consumption in china and underlying factors in a changing landscape empirical evidence since the reform period abstract in recent decades the phenomenal growth in the chinese economy has created increasing energy consumption this is the first study analysing energy consumption in china considering economic social and political dimensions of globalisation along with the effects from trade and financial sectors the time period covers the full trajectory since the start of economic reform until recent times in this respect we use the konjunkturforschungsstelle kof globalisation index to explore the dynamic link between economic growth financial development trade and various dimensions of globalisation and energy consumption modern time series econometric techniques are used in establishing stationarity long run dynamics and causality of the series the findings suggest that globalisation decreases energy consumption in the short run but increases it in the long run however the effect of financial development on energy consumption in china is opposite to the globalisation effect on energy consumption granger causality reveals a feedback effect between economic globalisation and financial development globalisation in china can only reduce energy consumption if china develops its financial sector to a greater extent in future china should invest in its financial sector and low carbon energy alternatives to achieve sustainable development prevention of energy shortfalls and cleaner environment would assist in bridging the gap both from social and political aspects to ensure china benefits significantly with high economic growth in this asian century

china s wind power industry policy support technological achievements and emerging challenges abstract since 2005 the chinese wind power technology industry has developed rapidly with china becoming the largest installer of wind power capacity in the world in 2010 this paper reviews the policy system implemented in china to support the wind power industry centered on china s 2005 renewable energy law it examines the industry s achievements over the past two decades including the development of wind power technology and equipment the utilization of china s wind power resources and the cost reductions achieved it then explores the obstacles affecting the ongoing sustainability of the chinese wind industry including regulatory barriers grid integration challenges and challenges to continued technological innovation it recommends that integration challenges be addressed through policy reforms establishing interconnection standards and creating predictability with forecasting and storage that market signals be established with long term development goals and pricing reforms and that industry limitations be addressed with targeted r d improved wind resource assessment and transparency domestic and international collaborations and the cultivation of a skilled workforce

are shocks to renewable energy consumption permanent or transitory an empirical investigation for brazil china and india abstract this paper investigates whether there is a unit root in renewable energy consumption in three large developing economies brazil china and india over the period 1971 2014 to do so it uses four unit root tests assuming one structural break two structural breaks and more than two structural breaks it observes that renewable energy consumption is a unit root process in brazil but it is found as stationary in china and india the paper also tackles issues and challenges in the unit root test methodology in energy economics literature and provides implications for renewable energy consumption in three economies

designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in china abstract electricity is the guarantee of normal life and the electricity price is widely concerned as a developing country in the transition stage abundant policy implications are included in the electricity price in china thus whether to adjust the resident electricity price is a dilemma for the government however the current single tariff system cannot cope with the complex social and environmental problems a new price mechanism is indeed needed this paper tries to design an increasing block tariffs system with the consideration of residential income and electricity consumption the result indicates that the increasing block tariffs system with four tier structure is more reasonable for china although the increasing block tariffs will result in the increase of electricity price it is still acceptable and affordable the increasing block tariffs will greatly improve the equity and efficiency and promote the electricity saving and emissions reduction moreover the power companies will increase tariffs revenue which would use to the transmission networks investment in poor area in order to the offset the limitations of the increasing block tariffs the government should adopt some complementary measures

an imbalanced development of coal and electricity industries in china china s coal and electricity industries have a strong reliance on each other however because of excessive invasion of government it is difficult for these two industries to form a stable reasonable and transaction cost saving relationships but long run disputes and quarrels this paper discusses the pricing policies and transaction relationship between these two industries from the historical perspective it begins with the discussion of coal coal market has become competitive since 1980 due to the system of dual track approach but coal sold to electricity was still tightly controlled by government guided pricing then the paper examines electricity investment and tariff reform unlike coal entry to electricity generation sector was gradually relaxed but generation and retailing tariffs are still strictly regulated as energy demand and prices soared after 2002 coal and electricity enterprises are all unsatisfied with the rule of price setting of coal sold to electricity industry this paper concludes that the deliberate low coal price policy does protect electricity industry from fuel cost fluctuation but harm coal industry allocative and productive efficiency are difficult to achieve in the long run

the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co2 emissions abstract this article investigates the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co 2 emissions using the logarithmic mean divisia index method the differential pricing policy intended to reduce energy intensity in manufacturing is being implemented in eight electricity intensive industries the study finds that during 2004 2009 the policy accounted for a drop of roughly 115 twh in electricity use which amounted to a reduction of 82 million tons of co 2 emissions the policy has been most effective in reducing electricity use in the nonferrous metal smelting and rolling industry and least effective in the ferrous metal smelting and rolling industry because the differential pricing policy has had significantly different effects across industries improving the policy s design and implementation going forward will require a more detailed understanding and analysis of how it can be better tailored to individual industries

a critical review on energy efficiency and conservation policies and programs in vietnam abstract due to the rapid population growth and economic development energy demand is likely to triple over the next decade in vietnam development and implementation of energy efficiency and conservation eec review the evolution of the government s eec and identify the challenges and provide the recommendations for implementing eec capacity building close coordination among the relevant ministries and the organizations and agencies during the implementation of eec etc should be put forward in the coming years in addition a number of recommendations for promoting ee in three largest energy consumers in vietnam namely industrial residential and transport sectors has been made in this paper

a snapshot of the european energy service market in 2010 and policy recommendations to foster a further market development abstract as of 2010 the energy service market in europe is still far from utilising its full potential wide scale peer reviewed studies investigating the development and up to date status of the european esco market are scarce this article presents a comprehensive insight of the european esco industry based on the results from a large scale survey carried out 2009 2010 in 39 european countries the observed market development during the period 2007 2010 trends in business practices and factors influencing the esco industry evolution are described finally having considered the remaining barriers and the supporting factors as well as the successful experiences in europe policy measures that could further promote esco activities are proposed

a review on global fuel economy standards labels and technologies in the transportation sector abstract globally the transportation sector is the second largest energy consuming sector after the industrial sector and accounts for 30 of the world s total delivered energy in 2008 the transportation sector accounted for about 22 of total world co2 emissions it is believed that this sector is currently responsible for nearly 60 of world oil demand within this sector road vehicles dominate oil consumption and represents 81 of total transportation energy demand the purpose of this paper is to highlight the possible opportunities to improve fuel economy and thus reduce global oil consumption and greenhouse gases there are three measures that have been reviewed passenger vehicle fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards fuel economy labels and improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency by advanced technologies fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards have proven to be one of the most effective tools in improving fuel economy japan and europe lead the world with the most stringent passenger vehicle fuel economy standards labeling is another measure that could play an important role in consumers vehicle purchasing decisions between similar vehicles labeling accompanied by standards of an appropriate type and level of stringency may yield synergistic results in this review several examples of fuel economy labels around the world have been presented such as in usa united kingdom canada china and australia finally advanced technologies have been discussed there are many technical opportunities to improve fuel efficiency and economy of motor vehicles in this review the possibilities of reducing vehicle power requirement advanced engine and transmission technology and alternative power plants have been reviewed it has been found that fuel economy standards labels and technologies offer a massive potential of energy saving that can be achieved in this sector and thus the authors promoted adopting these measures in the transportation sector

the failure of china s energy development strategy 2050 and its impact on carbon emissions china is the world s largest energy consumer and emitter of carbon china s energy development strategy is thus of great significance to the world s energy security and global carbon reduction target in this study the implementation of china s energy development strategy 2050 eds2050 which has been in operation since 1985 is investigated this study analyzes the causes of the failure of eds2050 and the impacts of that failure on carbon emissions the results show the following 1 eds2050 basically failed in 2010 and the strategic planning values of primary energy consumption and production were underestimated compared with the actual values by 39 and 67 respectively 2 comparing the predicted values of basic parameters in eds2050 with the actual values in the production field the main causes of failure were the underestimation of the economic growth rate and the proportion of non agricultural industries while in the living field the main causes were the underestimation of urbanization and per capita energy consumption in rural areas further analyses of various provinces demonstrated that the major factors leading to eds2050 failure include the economic growth rate urbanization population growth and the growth in car ownership 3 eds2050 failure resulted in an increase in carbon emissions in 2010 of 583 50 x 10 6 tc and increases of per capita carbon emissions reached 46 49 47 04 carbon emissions per unit of output demonstrated a reduction which was as a result of technological progress improving energy efficiency optimizing energy utilization and promoting national energy conservation should be highly emphasized in china s future sustainable energy development strategy c 2015 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

china s renewable energy law and its impact on renewable power in china progress challenges and recommendations for improving implementation beginning in 2006 china experienced a rapid growth in its renewable energy resources particularly wind power placing it among the world s leading countries in terms of renewable energy installation and generation this growth was greatly enabled by the renewable energy policy framework created by its landmark renewable energy law passed in 2005 and amended in 2009 which established key policies including national renewable energy targets a mandatory connection and purchase policy a national feed in tariff system and arrangements for cost sharing and funding of renewable energy incentives this paper describes the mechanisms established by the renewable energy law and its implementing regulations as well as the challenges china continues to face in improving its renewable energy policy framework to improve integration and utilization of renewable energy sources it also provides a comparison of the chinese renewable energy policy framework with those in the european union and united states finally the paper provides recommendations for improving implementation of the renewable energy law with regard to implementing a renewable power quota system and priority dispatch policy developing technical standards for connection of renewable resources with the grid development of a more advanced feed in tariff system and central local coordination of renewable energy development

retail electricity tariff and mechanism design to incentivize distributed renewable generation abstract this paper examines the question of how to incentivize the adoption and use of renewable energy resources with particular attention on distributed renewable energy dre prior experience suggests that price and quantity based programs such as feed in tariffs provide more efficient renewable adoption and use and lower program costs than programs that set quantity targets only we also examine some cost allocation issues raised by the use of dre systems and fixed time invariant retail pricing this combination can result in customers with dre systems paying a disproportionately small portion of system capacity costs we suggest two retail pricing schemes real time pricing and a two part tariff with demand charges to address these 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

the seasonal cycle and the business cycle almost all recent research on macroeconomic fluctuations has worked with seasonally adjusted or annual data this paper takes a different approach by treating seasonal fluctuations as worthy of study in their own right our results show that seasonal fluctuations are an important source of variation in all macroeconomic quantity variables but are small or entirely absent in both real and nominal price variables the timing of the seasonal fluctuations consists of increases in the second and fourth quarters a large decrease in the first quarter and a mild decrease in the third quarter the paper demonstrates that with respect to each of several major stylized facts about business cycles the seasonal cycle displays the same characteristics as the business cycle in some cases even more dramatically than the business cycle that is we find that at seasonal frequencies as well as at business cycle frequencies output movements across broadly defined sectors move together the timing of production and the

energy savings obligations in the uk a history of change this paper looks at energy savings obligations in the uk more specifically it discusses how the policy instrument changed over time and what the drivers of that change were the uk was the first country in europe that introduced obligations on suppliers to save energy at the customer end in 1994 since then this policy changed rapidly and is now the principal instrument to deliver energy savings in the housing stock the paper aims to answer three questions first how did the policy instrument change over time second what were the key drivers of that change third how did those pressures filter through the policy process and affect the energy savings obligations

china s energy security perception and reality abstract china now the world s second largest economy is worried about energy security which underpins the core objectives of beijing and the political legitimacy of the communist party of china the purpose of this study is to explore certain popular myths about china s energy security the study consists of six parts after the introduction it formulates the obscure concept of energy security and attempts to contextualize it with chinese characteristics then it explicitly points out that the largest driver of oil demand by china as the world s factory is transport instead of industry next it explores the effectiveness of transnational pipelines as a measure of energy security and explains why they are less effective than many observers have previously assumed furthermore it investigates the global expansion of chinese national oil companies and questions their actual contribution to energy security a few concluding remarks then follow

spurious deterministic seasonality it is sometimes assumed that the r2 of a regression of a first order differenced time series on seasonal dummy variables reflects the amount of seasonal fluctuations that can be explained by deterministic variation in the series in this paper we show that neglecting the presence of seasonal unit roots may yield spuriously high values of this coefficient

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

feed in tariff vs renewable portfolio standard an empirical test of their relative effectiveness in promoting wind capacity development abstract this paper examines the relative effectiveness of feed in tariff fit and renewable portfolio standard rps in promoting wind capacity development using panel data conservative estimates suggest that on average across countries fit increases total wind capacity more than rps by a magnitude of about 1800 mw when using time variant policy indicators the difference between the two policies increases to nearly 2000 mw roughly 8 of 2009 cumulative capacity in germany as for annual wind capacity since 2005 this paper has found no significant difference between fit and rps it is also found that wind energy development responds to high electricity demand and high oil dependence

the seasonal cycle in u s manufacturing abstract this paper examines the seasonal cycle in the manufacturing sector of the u s economy the most significant feature is a sharp slowdown in july we argue that this event is not easily explained by technology or preference shifts but instead results from synergies across economic agents

data envelopment analysis for unified efficiency evaluation an assessment of regional industries in china abstract data envelopment analysis has recently gained popularity and attention in operational and environmental assessment a common feature of previous studies is decreasing an input vector to decrease the vector of undesirable outputs which is referred to as natural disposability however little research has considered how to increase the amount of capital input for clean production technology to decrease the amount of undesirable outputs in a data envelopment analysis framework which is referred to as managerial disposability thus this paper proposes an improved approach that considers measuring unified operational and environmental efficiency for managerial disposability and compares this approach with the one for natural disposability the proposed approach provides a positive strategy to reduce undesirable outputs and improve unified efficiency through increasing capital investment in clean production technology a case study of regional industries in china in 2006 2010 utilizing this approach is also presented the empirical study shows that the unified efficiencies of regional industries in china have relatively high scores for managerial disposability and increasing capital investment is vital to achieve sustainable development in clean production technology

fuel consumption rates of passenger cars in china labels versus real world abstract recently china has implemented many policy measures to control the oil demand of on road vehicles in 2010 china started to report the fuel consumption rates of light duty vehicles tested in laboratory and to require new vehicles to show the rates on window labels in this study we examined the differences between the test and real world fuel consumption of chinese passenger cars by using the data reported by real world drivers on the internet voluntarily the sales weighted average fuel consumption of new cars in china in 2009 was 7 80 l 100 km in laboratory and 9 02 l 100 km in real world representing a difference of 15 5 for the 153 individual car models examined the real world fuel consumption rates were 8 to 60 different from the test values the simulation results of the international vehicle emission model show that the real world driving cycles in 22 selected chinese cities could result in 8 to 34 of changes in fuel consumption compared to the laboratory driving cycle further government effort on fuel consumption estimates adjustment local driving cycle development and real world data accumulation through communication with the public is needed to improve the accuracy of the labeling policy

an overview of implemented renewable energy policy of pakistan abstract after initiation of renewable energy policy in 2006 yet it could not be executed the green path for sustainable energy development in pakistan currently the share of non hydro big hydro projects renewables is less than 4 less than 900 mw of total installed electricity capacity against the medium term plan of having minimum capacity of 9700 mw in 2030 with several strategies and goals established in place to support the development of renewables however it is not well organized and also ill managed to find the effective renewable energy mix for the country according to targets this study aims to analyze that whether targets of renewable energy technology rets deployment will be met under the current regime a cross country analysis of renewable energy status reveals the workable instruments to increase the growth of rets amongst developed and developing nations it is clearly evident that without supplementary and policy instruments these ambitious targets cannot be achieved the strong political and financial commitments are necessary to accomplish the green pathway as governments are more tilted towards thermal power generation to overcome the huge electricity demand supply gap

electricity demand and basic needs empirical evidence from china s households an increasing block tariff ibt has been implemented nationwide in the residential sector in china since 2012 however knowledge about ibt design is still limited particularly how to determine the electricity volume for the first block of an ibt scheme assuming the first block should be set based on some measure of electricity poverty we attempt to model household electricity demand such that the range of basic needs can be established we show that in chinese households there exists a threshold for electricity consumption with respect to income which could be considered a measure of electricity poverty and the threshold differs between rural and urban areas for rural urban families electricity consumption at the level of 7th 5th income decile households can be considered the threshold for basic needs or a measure of electricity poverty since household electricity demand in rural urban areas does not respond to income changes until after 7th 5th income decile accordingly the first ibt block for some provinces e g beijing appears to have been set at a level that is too high over time however given continued rapid growth the ibt will begin to better reflect actual basic needs

why do countries and industries with large seasonal cycles also have large business cycles we show that there is a strong positive correlation across countries and industries between the standard deviation of the seasonal component and the standard deviation of the nonseasonal component of aggregate variables after documenting this stylized fact we discuss possible explanations and develop a model that generates our empirical finding the main feature of the model is that firms endogenously choose their degree of technological flexibility as a function of the amounts of seasonal and nonseasonal variation in demand although this model is intended to be illustrative we find evidence supporting one of its key empirical implications

forecasting performance of seasonal dummy models relative to some alternatives abeysinghe economic letters 1991 36 175 197 journal of econometrics 1994 forthcoming showed that seasonal dummies in regressions may lead to spurious inference this paper evaluates the post sample forecasting performance of a seasonal dummy arima model with four other models the results in general do not stand in favor of the seasonal dummy approach

comparing the feed in tariff incentives for renewable electricity in ontario and germany the development of feed in tariff fit programs to support green electricity in ontario the green energy and green economy act of 2009 and germany the erneuerbare energien gesetz of 2000 is compared the two policies are highly comparable offering similar rates for most renewable electricity technologies major differences between the policies include the level of differentiation found in the german policy as well as the use of a price degression strategy for fit rates in germany compared to an escalation strategy in ontario the german renewable electricity portfolio is relatively balanced compared to ontario where wind power dominates the portfolio at the federal level canada does not yet have a policy similar to the european directive on renewable energy and this lack may impact decisions taken by manufacturers of renewable technologies who consider establishing operations in the province ontario s green energy and green economy act could be benefit from lessons in the german system especially with regard to degression of feed in tariff rates over time which could significantly reduce payments to producers over the course of a contract and in turn encourage greater competitiveness among renewable power providers in the future

china s experiment on the differential electricity pricing policy and the struggle for energy conservation abstract differential electricity pricing was promulgated by china s central government to guide the development of high energy consuming industries which are significant for energy conservation this paper examines the twists and turns of the policy implementation at the provincial level and seeks to elucidate the difficulties in its implementation local governments concerned that following the central directives would hurt local interests have tried to deviate from the central orders while the central revises the policy from time to time to ensure local compliance three difficulties are analyzed 1 the current relations between the central and local energy regulatory institutions make these local institutions difficult to perform their duties and affect incentives for local governments to respond to central directives 2 financial reform puts a great burden on local governments to raise revenues to cover expenditures making local governments focus mainly on economic development rather than serving merely as political agents of the central government 3 the aggressive attitude of local governments in pursuing gdp growth is not necessarily driven by the central government but by pressure from competition among localities and the need to win local support solving these difficulties is important for making national energy conservation polices effective and efficient

is biomass power a good choice for governments in china abstract to fulfill the target of emissions reduction the chinese government has made many efforts to develop renewable energy biomass power can provide stable power supply avoid wasting straw resources and protect rural environment at the same time however the development of renewable power requires subsidies from the government but increased subsidies placed heavy burden on the governments whereas these governments want to develop renewable energy with minimum costs this paper attempts to answer the question that whether the development of biomass power is a good choice for local governments in china for this purpose the goal of emissions reduction and subsidies of renewable energy powers were discussed the main conclusion is that although the subsidies for biomass power were slightly higher than those for wind power biomass power is a good choice for governments considering other benefits especially for regions with rich agricultural and forest residues in the future regional and local conditions should be considered in the planning of biomass power development

the role of local private participation in china s transition to domestically developed renewable energy technologies china s hunger for energy has over the last two decades afforded opportunities to investors from hong kong and foreign countries to provide both the energy technologies china needs as well as project management capabilities to deliver energy projects recently however china has shown itself to be less reliant on non local expertise with an emerging capacity to go it alone in developing sources of energy data from the world bank private participation in infrastructure ppi database was used to analyse this trend and to identify strategic directions that may be evident in china s emerging energy self reliance a total of 555 cases were extracted for analysis using standard statistical tests across the range of available energy technologies while it was found that the involvement of hong kong and foreign companies remains significant overall there is a clear trend in chinese mainland firms targeting and overtaking non local counterparts in the development of renewable energy technologies and projects strong associations were identified between the rise in renewable projects and the growth in the participation of local companies in the energy sector this is a significant finding and it provides strong implications that chinese firms have emerged as an important competitor in renewable energy provision

non convex costs and capital utilization a study of production scheduling at automobile assembly plants i study detailed data from eleven automobile assembly plants these data display considerable cross plant heterogeneity in production scheduling to explain the observed heterogeneity i solve a dynamic programming model when desired production is below the plant s minimum e cient scale non convexities induce production bunching the plant uses less than full capital utilization on average and production is more volatile than sales when desired production is above the plant s minimum e cient scale the plant operates in a convex region of the cost curve in this case it uses high levels of capital utilization and production is less volatile than sales 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classixcation e23 d21 l23

a review of industrial energy and climate policies in japan and sweden with emphasis towards smes abstract the threat of increased global warming resulting from the use of fossil fuels stresses decision makers to formulate and adopt policies towards different sectors of the economy in light of the great earthquake in japan 2011 energy efficiency also plays an important role in meeting the challenge of power supply shortage energy policies towards industry are of particular importance as a major part of the energy in the economy is used in industrial production the number of papers investigating and presenting experience from energy end use policies are scarce furthermore for those present they often only include a very brief analysis from a public point of view evaluations of energy programs are of major importance to measure the performance of the programs from an energy policy designer point of view it is of major importance to not only see the cost effectiveness of the policy but also to understand the fundamental mechanisms for the success or failure of an industrial energy program in order to learn how to improve future programs the aim of this paper is to present a review of energy end use policy instrument in japan and sweden towards the industrial sector from 1990 to 2014 with special emphasis on industrial smes from the results presented some general conclusions can be made 1 results show that the cost effectiveness differs substantially between the evaluated programs and 2 that from a governmental point of view subsidies towards energy audit programs seem like the most cost effective policy in addition to this 3 the results from the review also stress the importance of a clear strategy for every energy program on how the program is going to be evaluated ex ante or ex post and how the performance of the program is to be measured this structure should be included from the start of the program