renewable energy partnerships in development cooperation towards a relational understanding of technical assistance abstract recent decades have witnessed a surge in international programmes established to assist the adoption of renewable energy technologies rets in low and lower middle income countries so far such programmes have yielded mixed success while partnerships between international national and local organisations have become the pre eminent model for ret programmes we know relatively little about their contribution this article traces the role of renewable energy partnerships in development cooperation shifting the analytical emphasis from barriers and drivers to key actors and their relationships it presents a relational approach for the analysis of development assistance for renewable energy drawing on theories concerning the role of strong and weak ties in inter organisational networks through an analysis of seven empirical cases from central america the article provides insights into how different forms of inter organisational relationships can facilitate implementation of ret programmes but do not necessarily enhance the capacities of local organisations in a way to support a more sustainable adoption of rets on the basis of this analysis theoretical and policy implications are given concerning the potential of relational approaches for researching technology diffusion processes and the role of strong and weak ties for the success or failure of renewable energy partnerships

interactions of factors impacting implementation and sustainability of renewable energy sourced electricity abstract two renewable energy sourced electricity res e technologies are at the forefront of the current energy transition away from fossil fuels wind and solar photovoltaic however res e must overcome implementation and sustainability challenges from factors identified in economic policy societal technological and environmental dimensions res e diffusion is also a complex problem and this critical review suggests that outcomes depend on interdependencies between factors within a single or across multiple dimensions four categories of interactivity have been identified higher capital costs or market inequalities associated with the economic dimension of res e drive supportive policies or incentives in the policy dimension in the policy policy category interactions between res e demand or supply side incentives influence electricity pricing energy market mixes or greenhouse gases emissions the society technology category examines societal technological interactions at both micro and macro scales the environment technology category details interactions between res e and the environment the technology technology category examines synergies between res e when collocated with conventional electricity generation technologies this review identified several knowledge gaps first research on res e implementation lacks system level analyses on the impact of interactions on project outcomes a well developed line of research examines interactions between multiple simultaneous supportive policies on res e implementation in developed nations however a second gap exists on the understanding of these interactions in developing nations a third gap exists on evaluating the impact of technological lock in this includes the impact on res e implementation rates when the complex economic policy governance and societal factors implicated in lock in are removed

a new tailored scheme for the support of renewable energies in developing countries abstract historically the promotion of renewable energy technologies in isolated areas has involved international donors or governments subsidising the initial capital investment this paper proposes an alternative support mechanism for remote villages based on the generation of renewable electricity this communication presents an evaluation of the renewable energy premium tariff rpt scheme a locally adapted variation of the feed in tariff tailored for decentralised grids of developing countries the rpt scheme stimulates the deployment of renewable energy technologies by paying for renewable electricity generated a good quality performance is secured since the support is given based on the electricity produced by renewables not for the initial capital investment the mechanism has been designed to provide a cost effective scheme for the introduction of renewable energy technologies to remote villages to provide sustainable and affordable electricity to local users to make renewable energy projects attractive to policy makers and concurrently decrease financial risk to attract private sector investment

the political economy of regulations and trade wine trade 1860 1970 dramatic changes in the 1860 1970 wine trade provide insights on the political economy of regulations and policy instrument choice and trade an invasion of phylloxera in the 1870s turned france from the world s leading exporter to a massive importer of wine and grapes when french production recovered a combination of tariffs safety regulations and quality standards were introduced to protect its french producers causing dramatic changes in global wine and grape production and trade including in spain italy turkey greece algeria tunisia and morocco changes in wine regulations were caused by relative income and loss aversion factors in political economy tariffs were the preferred policy instruments as they directly restrict imports bring in revenues have low transaction costs and are preferred political instruments when there are information imperfections safety regulations and quality standards including labelling and input prohibitions reduce asymmetric information for consumers or undesirable externalities and simultaneously protected domestic producers regulations were often targeted at imported products wine and raisins when tariffs were ineffective or constrained by institutions such as on colonial wine hence tariffs and quality regulations were jointly used in wine policy both as complements and as substitutes in policy design

the prospects of renewable energy technologies for rural electrification a review from nepal abstract utilization of renewable energy technologies remains one of the major energy policies throughout the world these technologies are proven to be successful for electrifying rural communities especially in developing countries realizing the benefits of renewable energy sources the government of nepal has initiated the production and distribution of renewable energy technologies in recent years mainly to electrify rural communities although these technologies are suitable for providing electricity in isolated and remote rural areas their implementation programs have not been successful as expected this review provides broad spectrum view about the energy situation in nepal and highlights the current policies and subsidies for the optimal utilization of renewable energy resources in isolated and poor rural communities in addition major promotional barriers for their implementation in nepal have been discussed

renewable energy investment by the world bank world bank group lending for renewable energy accelerated in the 1990s and resulted in 17 approved projects with 700 million in bank loans and 230 million in grants by the global environment facility the bank s 1999 energy sector strategy fuel for thought charted new directions for renewable energy investment the present paper considers the implementation challenges of fuel for thought strategies and the opportunities for carrying them out the paper distinguishes between agendas in the energy and rural development sectors and reviews limitations to implementing these agendas lessons from projects are just emerging but suggest ve areas of support for renewable energy by the bank in the future renewable energy nancing electric power policy frameworks rural energy enterprises regulated rural energy concessions and domestic technology manufacturing interviews with the private sector suggest additional forms of support assist with business plans nance pre feasibility studies reduce commercial risks support joint ventures build market volume and stability and pilot and test innovative business models the e ectiveness of the bank in following through on its ambitious agenda fundamentally rests on the willingness and commitment of developing countries to pursue these strategies and the degree to which renewable energy applications are seen to serve countries development priorities 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

examining the patterns of innovation in low carbon energy science and technology publications and patents of asian emerging economies this paper focuses on selected asian emerging economies the study employs publications and patents as proxies for science and technology and its analysis is divided into three main parts production trends catching up trends and patterns of convergence the findings resulted in four salient points to be considered by policy makers 1 asean 4 lagged significantly behind the more advanced economies korea taiwan and china even though their performance was identical in the early 1990s china has forged ahead in terms of scientific publications and patents production but lags behind in patents quality 2 compared to the world average the region as a whole has high potential to forge ahead in low carbon energy scientific production 3 advanced economies in asia kicked off their low carbon energy science and technology development more from technological rather than scientific production with no straightforward co evolution between the two competencies this demonstrates the need for a strong science based technological foundation and a high level of dynamism for low carbon energy technology development and 4 the economies demonstrated contrasting development trends in their focus between the supply and demand sides of energy technology development the performance of the advanced economies is higher in demand side low carbon energy innovations

does consumption take a random walk some evidence from macroeconomic forecasting data abstract professional quarterly forecasts of aggregate u s consumption series are used to test hall s 1978 random walk hypothesis results from band spectrum regressions suggest that forecasts predict about 40 percent of the low frequency variation in growth rates of expenditures on nondurables and services the forecasts have no explanatory power for high frequency variations the rejection of the random walk hypothesis is traced to excess sensitivity of consumption growth to forecasted income growth at the business cycle frequencies

the socio technical barriers to solar home systems shs in papua new guinea choosing pigs prostitutes and poker chips over panels this study explores the socio technical barriers to solar home systems shs in papua new guinea the authors collected primary data through semi structured research interviews conducted over the course of february 2010 april 2010 respondents included government officials financiers planners commercial distributors and companies teachers and rural villagers in addition to members of civil society academics consultants and trainers these interviews were supplemented with site visits to port moresby goroka and madang and field research in the villages of akameku asaroka lufa kundiawa okifa simbu and talidig the study draws from these interviews and visits to discuss four types of barriers technical barriers relate to substandard equipment and logistical problems economic barriers include high rates of poverty misconceptions about the role of currency and lack of financing political barriers include poor institutional capacity and a government commitment to fossil fueled grid electrification social barriers encompass unrealistic expectations about what shs can provide along with jealousy theft vandalism and unfamiliarity with solar technology

the permanent income hypothesis estimation and testing by instrumental variables the permanent income hypothesis with rational expectation is restated estimated and tested by an instrumental variables technique on the postwar u s aggregate time series data the hypothesis is accepted on a consumption series which includes service flows from consumer durables if the consumption series is the one in the national income and product accounts the hypothesis is decisively rejected an explanation is suggested to reconcile the conflicting test results

information for sale in the european union abstract this paper empirically explores the role of informational lobbying in shaping the eu trade policy to this purpose we construct an original dataset by collecting information on the participation of national and international organizations in the european commission consultations on trade issues and by merging it with newly released data on non tariff measures aggregated at the tariff line level between 1999 and 2007 our results suggest that european lobbies exert a major influence on policy makers drawing upon the panel structure of the dataset we find that participation in consultation meetings increases the probability of a protectionist policy even after controlling for product fixed effects and a number of control variables moreover actual attendance turns out to be more effective than simple registration and organizations representing more than one industrial category are more likely to obtain protection than single sector organizations these findings are interpreted in light of a political economy model of lobbying with possibly endogenous costs

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

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

adaptation of feed in tariff for remote mini grids tanzania as an illustrative case abstract following the successful feed in tariffs fits system worldwide few countries have implemented fits explicitly tailored for off grid or mini grid systems this study takes an integrated approach to examine the feasibility of an off grid feed in tariff off fit for existing and new remote mini grids in tanzania using a combination of geographical analysis technical economic and institutional assessments based on detailed modelling of two community off grid cases i pv diesel and ii mini hydro we identify least cost rural electrification options that make solar and mini hydro energy competitive with diesel generators and potential effect of the support scheme on rural electrification plans in the first case we illustrate where the off fit complements diesel generation of an existing mini grid pv diesel in the second case mini hydro we illustrate conditions where the off fit policy brings mini hydro generation to non electrified communities and sells renewable electricity directly to new customers currently tanzania has standardized power purchase spp rates which target generators connected to the national grid and distribution systems of mini grids or isolated grids we found for the off fit tariff the total amount needed to support the same number of customers by solar and hydro mini grids versus diesel would be of 31 5 million us or a premium of 0 11 us kwh to the present current spps tariff of 0 24 us kwh for pv we also found that a technology specific fit tariff would be most suitable to attract national and international investors by providing a rate of return that compensates the risk of the investment the overall support is comparable to the 36 million us that the government currently subsidizes and allocates to diesel mini grids in country and this shows the potential for a long term renewable energy strategy for mini grid areas

economics and politics of food standards trade and development standards have played an important role in food trade for a very long time their rapid growth in recent years has triggered vigorous debates on their impacts on international trade and development with many arguing that standards are non tariff barriers to trade and that standards are marginalizing the poor i present conceptual frameworks and review empirical evidence on the equity and efficiency effects and the political economy of standards models which incorporate essential aspects of standards yield complex theoretical results and nuanced conclusions careful empirical analyses support such nuanced arguments and find complex effects for trade standards can create welfare gains but also involve rent redistribution which induces lobbying by interest groups to set the standards at their preferred level this makes it difficult to distinguish socially desirable standards from those resulting from political rent seeking for development it is crucial to explicitly account for a the endogeneity of the institutional organization of value chains and b both smallholder contracting and employment creation on large scale farms when considering the impact of standards on development and poverty

sustainability assessment of renewable energy projects for off grid rural electrification the pangan an island case in the philippines abstract renewable energy systems ress have been promoted for rural electrification as an answer to the growing energy needs of communities while simultaneously satisfying environmental and resource scarcity problems these off grid systems however have several challenges in the perspective of sustainability due to the technically and financially weak recipients and users of the projects there is still however less detailed understanding how the technical and economic aspects of the projects can properly match the social aspects to promote sustainability this paper aimed to further understand the challenges and social impacts of rural electrification projects using res through a case study of a centralized off grid solar plant in the philippines the study used multiple correspondence analysis mca to identify essential user attributes which explain the users electricity consumption behaviors the community cooperative had difficulties maintaining the facility in the long term due to financial and capacity related challenges a holistic approach dealing with the technical economic and social aspects in developing res projects promote sustainability

telecommunications infrastructure and economic development a simultaneous approach in diesem beitrag wird untersucht welchen einflus die telekommunikations infrastruktur auf die wirtschaftliche entwicklung ausubt diese wichtige frage hat im zusammenhang mit der diskussion um informationsautobahnen aktualitat erlangt in der vorliegenden studie wird der einflus der telekommunikations infrastruktur fur 21 oecdlander fur die vergangenen 20 jahre analysiert es wird ein strukturgleichungsmodell geschatzt in dem investitionen in die telekommunikations infrastruktur als endogene variable erfast werden und in einem mikromodell angebot und nachfrage nach telekommunikations investitionen spezifiziert werden das mikromodell wird dann zusammen mit der makro wachstumsgleichung geschatzt als ergebnis stellen die autoren dann eine positive kausalbeziehung zwischen telekommunikations investitionen und wirtschaftlicher entwicklung fest wenn eine kritische masse an telekommunikations infrastruktur existiert

renewable energies and the poor niche or nexus renewable energies are considered as an essential element of any strategy for sustainable energy development the poor in the developing world without access to modern energies are regarded as a major market for renewable energies this short paper attempts to analyse whether such a niche is backed by any economic logic and whether renewable energy and the poor nexus could be a strategy for success the paper suggests that contrary to the common belief the economic logic behind the niche is unsound and that the nexus is not a recipe for success

the geography of energy and education leaders laggards and lessons for achieving primary and secondary school electrification even though large scale electricity networks have existed for more than a century thousands of primary and secondary schools have no electricity more than 80 percent of children in sub saharan africa attend primary schools that lack electricity more than a quarter of village schools in india lack electricity access and fewer than half of peruvian schools are electrified collectively nearly 200 million children attend schools not connected to any type of electricity supply a number greater than the populations of nigeria bangladesh russia or japan throughout the globe certain countries and regions lead the way in school electrification while others lag behind through the lens of energy and education geography this article identifies a series of interconnected challenges to electrifying schools obstacles span financing and technical reliability to bias in educational and energy funding to inability of electrification to yield net positive learning outcomes despite these challenges solutions do exist as the activities of emerging energy leaders demonstrate high upfront costs can be mitigated by tapping into diverse financing streams and distributing risk through public private partnerships technical problems can be countered by stable policy frameworks with strong technical standards and certification schemes electrification efforts can be coupled with household and cooking programs that build community this article shows that schools can provide students with the light heat and modern tools of teaching they deserve if planners investors and policymakers make determined coordinated efforts at providing energy for education

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 sensitivity of consumption to transitory income estimates from panel data on households we investigate the stochastic relation between income and consumption specifically consumption of food within a panel of about 2 000 households our major findings are 1 consumption responds much more strongly to permanent than to transitory movements of income 2 the response to transitory income is nonetheless clearly positive 3 a simple test independent of our model of consumption rejects a central implication of the pure life cycle permanent income hypothesis the observed covariation of income and consumption is compatible with pure life cycle permanent income behavior on the part of80 percent of families and simple proportionality of consumption and income among the remaining 20 percent as a general matter our findings support the view that families respond differently to different sources of income variations in particular temporary income tax policies have smaller effects on consumption than do other more permanent changes in income of the same magnitude this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

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

financing energy access and off grid electrification a review of status options and challenges abstract this paper provides a review of funding needs and financing mechanisms for energy access in general and off grid electrification in particular to find whether the funding for these activities has been adequate whether sufficient funding is likely to be available to meet the needs of universal energy access whether innovative approaches can be used in funding it finds that in all successful cases the state has played an important role in funding infrastructure investments but many developing countries have neglected the energy access issue for a long time international donor agencies have provided selective and limited support while the innovative mechanisms are also unfriendly towards small scale projects weak governance limited organisational capacity and unfavourable policy environment militate against large scale mobilisation of financial resources in the poorest countries of the world where energy access is a chronic problem the challenge of mobilising finance and ensuring its appropriate delivery and use remains a major issue and would require a co ordinated effort of all relevant stakeholders

exploring renewable energy pricing with analytic network process comparing a developed and a developing economy abstract increasing use of renewable sources has a vital importance in mitigating increasing energy demand and global warming the limited reserves and negative environmental impacts associated with fossil fuel consumption make the renewable energy sources considerable alternatives in case environmental externalities are taken into consideration pricing models for renewable energy alternatives are commonly based on the same fundamentals as the fossil fuels but this approach neglects some of the characteristics that are unique to renewable energy alternatives in order to develop more accurate pricing models these unique variables which are mostly considered as market externalities need to be integrated in the current forms of pricing models the originality of this work is its ability to combine social technical environmental and economic aspects using analytic network process in order to provide a more holistic point of view on factors impacting renewable energy pricing through a comparison of two case studies united states u s and turkey are the two cases analyzed in this paper u s represents a developed economy whereas turkey represents a developing economy it is expected that the results of this work would be helpful for further research in understanding the dynamics behind pricing mechanism of the renewable sources in different environments for instance fundamental differences in relative importance of pricing factors between two case countries have been identified as different levels of enforcement through laws and regulations impact of geographic characteristics on site selection and job opportunities created through new investments

key findings of the ntm impact project this introduction summarises some of the key research findings of the papers in this special issue of the world economy drawn from a european commission co funded project on non tariff measures ntms affecting agri food trade of the eu and its trade partners the project created a large symmetric international database of regulations and standards constructed measures of their heterogeneity and evaluated the effects of heterogeneity on trade cases studies for selected dairy meat and fruit and vegetable products complement the aggregate analysis the findings suggest that at least for some import standards the harmonisation of regulations will increase trade additional findings address the potential protectionist leaning of some ntms their welfare impact third country consequences of their imposition interface of ntms with tariffs and other border measures negotiation strategies north south dimensions of ntm impacts and the value added from the application of diverse and novel models to the assessment of their effects resume d auteur

a qualitative factor analysis of renewable energy and sustainable energy for all se4all in the asia pacific this study assesses the factors responsible for the success and failure of renewable energy access programs in bangladesh china laos mongolia nepal sri lanka india indonesia malaysia and papua new guinea based on 441 research interviews over the course of four years site visits to 90 renewable energy facilities and focus groups with almost 800 community members in 10 countries this study develops a series of overarching qualitative factors that correlate with programs that met their targets sometimes ahead of schedule and produced measurable benefits exceeding costs the inverse of these factors is associated with programs that did not meet their targets were behind schedule and or produced measurable costs exceeding benefits it concludes by offering 10 lessons for energy analysts and development practitioners concerning appropriate technology income generation financing political leadership capacity building programmatic flexibility marketing and awareness stakeholder engagement community ownership and technical standardization

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

an integrated framework for rural electrification adopting a user centric approach to business model development rural electrification re has gained prominence over the past two decades as an effective means for improving living conditions this growth has largely been driven by socio economic and political imperatives to improve rural livelihood and by technological innovation based on a content analysis of 232 scholarly articles the literature is categorized into four focal lenses technology institutional viability and user centric we find that the first two dominate the re debate the viability lens has been used less frequently whilst the user centric lens began to engage scholars as late as 2007 we provide an overview of the technological institutional and viability lenses and elaborate upon the user centric lens in greater detail for energy policy and practice we combine the four lenses to develop a business model framework that policy makers practitioners and investors could use to assess re projects or to design future rural electrification strategies

factors impacting diverging paths of renewable energy a review abstract considered an essential factor for countries development energy demand is growing worldwide unlike conventional sources the use of renewable energy sources has multiple benefits including increased energy security sustainable economic growth and pollution reduction in particular greenhouse gas emissions nevertheless there is a considerable difference in the share of renewable energy sources in national energy portfolios this study conducts a systematic literature review to identify drivers and barriers which could help understanding the diverging paths of renewable energy deployment for countries among a total of 1431 academic studies 60 qualitative and quantitative studies were identified using a multistage selection process designated manuscripts were explored in detail including publication years length of the studies countries represented and renewable energy sources referenced factors explaining countries renewable energy deployments were defined and organized into seven main categories economic environmental political regulatory social technical potential and technological within these categories economic considerations appeared most frequently across manuscripts while environmental factors were least represented these categories were then classified as drivers barriers or undetermined towards renewable energy deployment based on a one sample proportion statistical test economic environmental and social factors were found to be drivers whereas political regulatory technical potential and technological factors were not classified as either a driver or a barrier i e undetermined each main category contains several subcategories among which only national income was found to have a positive impact whereas all other subcategories were considered undetermined no significant barriers to the deployment of renewable energy sources were found over the analyzed period

the stochastic behavior of durable and nondurable consumption the life cycle permanent income hypothesis suggests that optimization by consumers should cause marginal utility to approximate a random walk as a consequence purchases of nondurable goods should also approximately follow a random walk and purchases of durable goods should approximately follow a white noise process the univariate processes for nondurables and durables both appear to be random walks which would confirm the lc pih for nondurables and reject it for durables adjustment costs and nonseparability between durables and nondurables are then added to the specification of utility the resulting more general stochastic process is estimated and the data tend to support the existence of nonseparabilty but not adjustment costs while forecasts of durables are not fully informationally efficient they do about as well as do forecasts of nondurables the behavior of durable consumption purchases is shown to be consistent with the life cycle permanent income hypothesis copyright 1989 by mit press

alternative framework for renewable energy planning in the philippines abstract like many countries striving to be responsible consumers of energy and conscious of the need to mitigate the impact of climate change the philippines has in both policy and practice shown a bias towards renewable energy re sources the country s proportion of re production in primary energy and distribution in electricity is significantly higher than those of many asian and european countries however the philippine national re program has adopted a strategy of aggressively amassing re capacity to the extent of tripling the capacity over the period 2011 to 2030 the preoccupation with more megawatts rather than the value of re beyond clean energy has erected a bias against off grid re applications off grid re applications can displace more expensive diesel generation and can enhance the livelihood opportunities for communities the insistence on focusing on megawatts is threatening to bloat the current feed in tariff structure by causing large grid connected applications to be seriously oversubscribed this paper reviews the current re status in the philippines and presents a simple alternative planning paradigm in which the ability of re technology to affect the livelihood of the residents and the effectiveness of its energy delivery are used to distinguish the utility of different re technologies in off grid and grid connected areas the authors also describe an actual kw scale off grid application that addresses both energy and economic poverty

the informational content of ex ante forecasts the informational content of different forecasts can be compared by regressing the actual change in a variable to be forecasted on forecasts of the change we use the procedure in fair and shiller 1987 to examine the informational content of three sets of ex ant forecasts the american statistical association and national bureau of economic research survey asa data resources incorporated dri and wharton economic forecasting associates uefa we compare these forecasts to each other and to quasi ex ante forecasts generated from a vector autoregressive model an autoregressive components model and a large scale structural model the fair model

an energy pricing scheme for the diffusion of decentralized renewable technology investment in developing countries the purpose of this paper is to investigate price support for market penetration of renewable energy in developing nations through a decentralized supply process we integrate the new decentralized energy support renewable premium tariff to analyze impacts of tariff incentives on the diffusion of renewable technology in senegal based on photovoltaic and wind technologies and an assessment of renewable energy resources in senegal an optimization technique is combined with a cash flow analysis to investigate investment decisions in renewable energy sector our findings indicate that this support mechanism could strengthen the sustainable deployment of renewable energy in remote areas of senegal although different payoffs emerged profits associated with a renewable premium tariff are the highest among the set of existing payoffs moreover in analyzing impacts of price incentives on social welfare we show that price tariffing schemes must be strategically scrutinized in order to minimize welfare loss associated with price incentives finally we argue that a sustainable promotion of incentive mechanisms supporting deployment of renewable technology in developing nations should be carried out under reliable institutional structures the additional advantage of the proposed methodology is its ability to integrate different stakeholders producers investors and consumers in the planning process