towards cooperative policy approaches in china drivers for voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency in nanjing energy efficiency is a national priority for china as rapid energy consumption growth aggravates its greenhouse gas emissions local air pollution and energy scarcity in the 1990s a large number of voluntary agreements emerged in industrialised countries in order to improve industrial energy efficiency these experiences are now taken into account in china this article analyses the drivers for voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency in china based on a case study of three enterprises in nanjing jiangsu province furthermore the article reviews the institutional set up of energy policy and investigates the pertaining policy culture from the findings conclusions are drawn on the role of voluntary agreements within china s larger policy context we conclude that opposed to avoiding stricter regulation voluntary agreements in nanjing are reinterpreted in view of more stringent national provisions on energy efficiency in the 11th five year plan hence agreements have evolved into an implementation tool of national policy at the local level for industry another major driver for participation was identified as improving its relations with local authorities voluntary agreements showed to have the potential to overcome traditional constraints of implementing top down policies at the local level in china

reforming residential electricity tariff in china block tariffs pricing approach the chinese households that make up approximately a quarter of world households are facing a residential power tariff reform in which a rising block tariff structure will be implemented and this tariff mechanism is widely used around the world the basic principle of the structure is to assign a higher price for higher income consumers with low price elasticity of power demand to capture the non linear effects of price and income on elasticities we set up a translog demand model the empirical findings indicate that the higher income consumers are less sensitive than those with lower income to price changes we further put forward three proposals of chinese residential electricity tariffs compared to a flat tariff the reasonable block tariff structure generates more efficient allocation of cross subsidies better incentives for raising the efficiency of electricity usage and reducing emissions from power generation which also supports the living standards of low income households

the brazilian experience of rural electrification in the amazon with decentralized generation the need to change the paradigm from electrification to development abstract there are at least 607 thousand households in the brazilian amazon that need to be attended with some form of regular electricity service these households are not attended by the electricity sector through its electricity distribution companies and most of them have some form of precarious decentralized electricity generation that is not registered or regulated in the institutional framework diverse initiatives were taken by brazilian government to attend these household through alternatives that relied on locally available renewable energy this paper accesses this initiatives of rural electrification in the brazilian amazon first an overview of the problems of rural electricity are discussed and its specificities in the brazilian amazon then the brazilian institutional framework that organizes the decentralized electricity generation is described with its various limitations the diverse initiatives undertaken to attend the rural communities in the amazon since the 1990s are described as well as how these initiatives are linked to the policies for rural electrification the results shows that it can be inferred that sole market mechanisms are not sufficient to guarantee economic sustainability of these projects this can be one of the reasons why traditional electricity distribution companies showed the lack of interest in promoting rural electrification with other means than grid extension the most successful projects had financed efforts to integrate the generation of electricity into local development initiatives in order to guarantee sustainability and used substantial part of funding for local mobilization and organization it needs a paradigm chance by treating these initiatives as local development initiatives and promoting alternative ways for its implementation through partnership between local new actors in the electricity sector and government and implementing policy on a local municipal level

white certificate schemes economic analysis and interactions with the eu ets this paper examines the economic environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate twc scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets it uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a twc scheme will increase decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand wholesale and retail electricity prices carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency paying particular attention to the interpretation of additionality

using latent variable approach to estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the energy rebound effect has been a significant issue in china which is undergoing economic transition since it reflects the effectiveness of energy saving policy relying on improved energy efficiency based on the ipat equation and brookes explanation of the rebound effect this paper develops an alternative estimation model of the rebound effect by using the estimation model and latent variable approach which is achieved through a time varying coefficient state space model we estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the results show that the rebound effect evidently exists in china as a result of the annual average of 39 73 over 1954 2010 before and after the implementation of china s reform and opening up policy in 1978 the rebound effects are 47 24 and 37 32 with a strong fluctuation and a circuitously downward trend respectively indicating that a stable political environment and the development of market economy system facilitate the effectiveness of energy saving policy although the energy saving effect of improving energy efficiency has been partly realised there remains a large energy saving potential in china

energy saving in energy market reform the feed in tariffs option abstract the use of feed in tariffs fits is now widespread for renewable energy and under discussion for other low carbon electricity generation but not for energy efficiency there is a small literature on fits for electricity demand reduction but not energy efficiency more generally this paper considers the general application of fits on the demand side and sets out the economic arguments in the context of changing energy markets it then discusses the implications of some practical issues including the definitional problems arising from the difference between energy efficiency and demand reduction using experience from historical energy efficiency programmes it considers the public benefits payment methods and policy scope that need to be considered and how these might affect policy design it makes some provisional estimates of economically justified payments in the context of the proposed uk energy market reform it concludes that fits for energy saving might be a powerful tool for incentivising energy efficiency

implementation of energy efficiency projects by dutch industry as potentials for energy savings are huge industry can provide a major contribution to energy savings goals this paper focuses on the energy savings realized under the dutch voluntary agreements in the period 2001 2011 participants in these schemes are obliged to plan and implement all measures with a payback period of less than 5 years this paper shows how many of these projects have been implemented and how much savings they generate our findings show that large differences exist in the realized savings between individual companies there is however no significant difference in savings observed between companies that participate in the emission trading system ets and companies that do not although it is impossible to disentangle the drivers behind the implementation of these projects the amount of savings suggest that at least part of them was implemented because of different energy policy instruments

evaluating renewable energy based rural electrification program in western china emerging problems and possible scenarios renewable energy technologies offer an economically viable and environmentally suitable scenario towards addressing energy requirements for rural livelihoods china s renewable energy rural electrification program initiated in 2001 is an effort to employ renewable energy technologies on a large scale for rural electrification the program has been designed with several stages this paper firstly offers an analysis of the problems encountered during the progress of this rural electrification program using data obtained from field survey of representative areas in western china where the first stage of the program was implemented the paper then explores feasible solutions in order to address existing rural energy issues and provide long term reliable energy service for remote communities in support of future course of development of renewable energy application for rural energy demands policy recommendations are provided

dynamic equilibrium with liquidity constraints this article studies an intertemporal economy with liquidity constrained and unconstrained individuals we use a stopping time approach to solve the finite horizonconstrained consumption portfolio problem with constant relative risk aversion and to examine the structure of equilibrium the impact of the constraint on the optimal consumption and the financing portfolio is assessed the equilibrium state price density is related to the exercise boundary of an american style contingent claim with nonlinear payoff this stopping time characterization enables us to prove the existence of an equilibrium and can be implemented numerically properties of equilibrium bond and stock returns are examined copyright 2003 oxford university press

the energy rebound effect in china s light industry a translog cost function approach abstract china is in its industrialization and urbanization development stage which requires strong energy support with the largest population in the world the energy endowment of china is relatively small therefore energy conservation is one of the key tools for china s sustainable development and energy security when making policies for conservation the chinese government needs to deal with rebound effect carefully in 2012 china s light industry consumed 316 million tons of coal equivalents accounting for 9 percent of the country s total energy consumption which is about the total amount of energy consumed by south korea based on the translog cost function the magnitude of rebound effect in china s light industry is estimated for the first time using the dynamic ordinary least squares and seemingly unrelated regression methods considering the asymmetric effects of energy prices on energy consumption the rebound effect is approximately 37 7 and all the inputs are substitutes except for labor and energy the different magnitude of rebound effect between light and heavy industry is discussed and some policy implications are provided for more effective energy conservation allowing for the rebound effect

energy efficiency standards for refrigerators in brazil a methodology for impact evaluation abstract in brazil energy efficiency standards for cold appliances was established in 2007 a specified single set of meps minimum energy performance standards for refrigerators freezers and freezer refrigerators was implemented without evaluating its impacts and estimation of potential electricity savings this paper presents a methodology for assessing the impacts of the brazilian meps for cold appliances it uses a bottom up approach to estimate residential end use consumption and to evaluate the energy saving potential for refrigerators the household electricity consumption is projected by modeling appliance ownership using an econometric approach based on the recent household survey data a cost benefit analysis for more stringent standards is presented from the perspective of the society and electricity customers the results showed that even considering the current market conditions high discount rate for financing new efficient equipment some meps options are advantageous for customers the analysis also demonstrates significant cost effective saving potential from the society perspective that could reach 21 twh throughout the period of 2010 2030 about 25 of current residential consumption

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

the macro economic rebound effect and the uk economy abstract this paper examines the macroeconomic rebound effect for the uk economy arising from energy efficiency policies 2000 2010 using the macroeconomic model mdm e3 the literature distinguishes between three types of rebound effect direct indirect and economy wide the macroeconomic rebound effect considered here is the combination of the indirect and economy wide effects policies for the domestic business commercial and public and transport sectors of the economy are analysed for 2000 2010 overall the policies lead to a saving of about 8 of the energy which would otherwise have been used and a reduction in co2 emissions of 10 or 14 mtc by 2010 there are also favourable macroeconomic effects lower inflation and higher growth we find that the macroeconomic rebound effect arising from uk energy efficiency policies for the period 2000 2010 is around 11 by 2010 averaged across sectors of the economy when this is added to the assumed direct rebound effect of around 15 this gives a total rebound effect of around 26 arising from these policies thus the findings of the study support the argument that energy efficiency improvements for both consumers and producers stimulated by policy incentives will lead to significant reductions in energy demand and hence in greenhouse gas emissions

turkey s energy efficiency assessment white certificates systems and their applicability in turkey abstract the last decade has seen an increase in the importance of energy efficiency and the sustainable use of energy resources due to their significant benefits for reducing a country s dependence on foreign energy resources and increasing awareness on environmental problems turkey aims to reduce its energy intensity by 20 up to 2023 and in order to accomplish this target the country plans to use energy more effectively in various industries and develop financial mechanisms for energy efficiency although much effort has been made to improve energy efficiency additional policies such as marked based incentives are still necessary this article deals with one of the many market based energy efficiency policies called tradable white certificates whc or energy efficiency obligations the current situation of the energy field in turkey and energy consumption by industries is presented first in this paper followed by potentials for energy efficiency in each industry and energy efficiency policies furthermore the theory and applicability of a whc system is introduced and discussed in terms of market conditions choice of obligated participants and market mechanisms and barriers for the turkish electricity and natural gas market to benefit from the residential and industrial energy savings potential

determinants of energy efficiency investments in the us this paper analyses decisions on energy efficiency ee investments by small and medium manufacturing enterprises in the us which have received assessment from the department of energy doe the results confirm the importance of payback time and investment costs as the main determining factors in deciding whether to invest in energy efficiency such investment recommendations are frequently not implemented even though they apparently entail major advantages and give rise to considerable energy savings the data show results which are compatible with a series of elementary valuation processes limited to availability of information far removed from other more academically ambitious methods such as net present value npv and the real options ro method the paper analyses the impact of the primary resource streams electricity natural gas other energy waste and others physical situation of firms in line with their geographical locations in different us states and changes over time from 1984 to 2009 ee investment decisions are analysed here using probit models whose parameters are calibrated on the basis of the information held in the industrial assessment centres iac database the results suggest various ideas to improve policies for promoting investment in ee specially the iac programme

policies for eliminating low efficiency production capacities and improving energy efficiency of energy intensive industries in china abstract china faced the greatest challenge in balancing its economic growth energy and resource security as well as environmental pollution the energy intensive industries which used to be the major force driving china s economic growth had seriously exhausted the countries natural resources and energy and at the same time polluted the environment because of the severe surplus of low efficiency production capacities as a result the chinese government had initiated multiple economic and administrative policies to eliminate these low efficiency production capacities intended to improve the energy efficiency of energy intensive industries these policies are summarized in this paper along with export tax rebating rate resource tax administrative audit and approvals differential electric power pricing and shutting down the low efficiency production capacities the paper also evaluates the effects of these policies by analyzing several key indicators about the energy intensive industries including fixed asset investment growth rate energy intensity of industrial added value waste gas emission intensity of industrial added value the valdex methodology is selected to examine the improving trends of energy efficiency for energy intensive industries the analyzing results show that firstly the development of low efficiency capacities tends to be more sensitive to the policies so the policies that china had enacted really exert very important effects on improving the energy efficiency of energy intensive industries however the effects of economic policies seem more faster and obvious than the fiscal policies besides the results also show that polices which are designed to reserve energy may not necessarily exert the same effects on reducing emissions there is still large room for improving the energy efficiency of energy intensive industries substantial improvement still needs to be done for current policies system some suggestions for future work are provided

voluntary agreements with white certificates for energy efficiency improvement as a hybrid policy instrument in this paper we examine the implementation of a combined policy scheme that consists of a traditional instrument the voluntary agreements vas and an innovative one the white certificates whc the basic structure of this scheme is that energy suppliers who undertake an energy efficiency obligation under a white certificate scheme can make use of voluntary actions to enhance investments in innovative energy savings projects energy suppliers and other market parties can additionally or in parallel participate in voluntary agreements and set energy efficiency targets for fulfilling their voluntary agreement target these market parties can receive tax exemptions or receive white certificates that they can sell in the market transaction costs and baseline definition for demonstrating energy efficiency improvement deserve special attention this policy can assist a country to enhance energy efficiency improvement while it stimulates innovation cost effectiveness can be higher than the case of stand alone policy instruments since more financing options are available for more expensive projects nevertheless the added value of the scheme lies more in the implementation of innovative measures for enhanced energy efficiency furthermore market parties can discover more business opportunities in energy efficiency and establish a green image hence an integrated scheme should achieve higher political acceptability

energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making departing from the concept of rational use of energy the paper outlines the microeconomics of end use energy saving as a result of frugality or efficiency measures frugality refers to the behaviour that is aimed at energy conservation and with efficiency we refer to the technical ratio between energy input and output services that can be modified with technical improvements e g technology substitution changing behaviour from one side and technology from the other are key issues for public energy policy in this paper we attempt to identify the effects of parameters that determine energy saving behaviour with the use of the microeconomic theory the role of these parameters is crucial and can determine the outcome of energy efficiency policies therefore policymakers should properly address them when designing policies

the rebound effect for heavy industry empirical evidence from china abstract energy efficiency improvement will reduce the effective price of energy services and hence at least partially mitigate original expected energy conservation therefore the magnitude of rebound effect is important for the design and timing of an effective energy conservation policy under the framework of translog cost share equations we estimates the direct rebound effect for heavy industry in china for the first time by conducting an empirical research on the relationship between the direct rebound effect and the ease with which energy services can substitute for other inputs additionally asymmetric price responses are specified in the model for the rebound effect estimation empirical results in our paper indicate that the rebound effect for heavy industry in china is about 74 3 this reveals that energy efficiency improvement can save energy to a certain degree since the rebound effect is less than 100 back fire but most of the expected reduction in heavy industry energy consumption is mitigated these findings prove that energy pricing reforms and energy taxes should be further implemented to achieve effective energy conservation in china s 12th five years plan

macroeconomic effects of efficiency policies for energy intensive industries the case of the uk climate change agreements 2000 2010 abstract this paper reports a study modeling the uk climate change agreements ccas and related energy efficiency policies for energy intensive industrial sectors bottom up estimates of the effects of these policies are introduced into the energy demand equations of a top down dynamic econometric model of the uk economy with fifty industrial sectors mdm e3 this allowed estimation of the effects of the reduced energy use for the outputs from the sectors i e the reductions in unit costs of the energy intensive industries on the demand for their outputs both in the uk and in the export markets the model is solved as a counterfactual 2000 2005 and as a projection 2005 2010 in a series of scenarios to allow estimation of the effects of the policies on inflation and growth as well as on overall energy demand and co 2 emissions the system wide final energy reductions is estimated to be 4 2 mtoe or 2 6 of total final demand for energy by 2010 including a rebound effect of 19 with negligible effects on inflation and a slight increase in economic growth through improved international competitiveness

incentive mechanisms to promote energy efficiency programs in power distribution companies abstract power distribution companies discos play an important role in promoting energy efficiency hereafter ee mainly due to the fact that they have detailed information regarding their clients consumption patterns however under the traditional regulatory framework discos have disincentives to promote ee due to the fact that a reduction in sales also means a reduction in their revenues and profits most regulatory policies encouraging ee have some embedded payment schemes that allow financing ee programs in this paper we focus on these ee programs payment schemes that are embedded into the regulatory policies specifically this paper studies two models of the principal agent bi level type in order to analyze the economic effects of implementing different payment schemes to foster ee in discos the main difference between each model is that uncertainty in energy savings is considered by the electricity regulatory institution in only one of the models in terms of the results it is observed that in general terms it is more convenient for the regulator to adopt a performance based incentive mechanism than a payment scheme financing only the fixed costs of implementing ee programs however if the electricity regulatory institution seeks a higher level of minimum expected utility it is optimal to adopt a mixed system of compensation which takes into account the fixed cost compensation and performance based incentive payments

implied discount rate and payback threshold of energy efficiency investment in the industrial sector the industrial sector is responsible for about a third of the energy usage in the united states and there is significant energy saving potential from the industrial sector however the phenomenon of energy efficiency gap the scenario in which cost effective energy efficient technologies enjoy only limited market success appears frequently in the industrial sector this article tries to explain this efficiency gap in the industrial sector by empirically estimating the implied discount rates and payback thresholds industrial firms use to evaluate their energy efficiency investments using the industrial assessment centers iac database from 2002 to 2011 with more than 30 000 energy efficiency recommendations this article builds structural models of firms evaluation of an energy efficiency project the model results show that the implied discount rates of medium to small industrial firms range from 40 to 45 and the average payback threshold is about 9 months

an assessment of electricity and income distributional trends following rural electrification in poor northeast brazil highlights c comprehensive analysis of brazil s recent rural electrification efforts c new methodology to analyze energy and income equity trends ex post electrification c analysis indicates immediate social benefits for electrified households c we cannot establish a direct link between electricity use and income in the short run c electrification thus should be integrated in long term rural development strategies abstract rural electrification is considered to be a key strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development it should therefore include 1 expanding electricity access and 2 enable new consumers to increase their electricity consumption in this paper we ask how brazil s recent rural electrification efforts have managed to reach these objectives a new method to measure energy and income equity is presented which uses estimations of non parametric density curves for the analysis of energy and income distributional trends following electrification by applying our method to a panel data set from two brazilian states situated in the country s poor northeast region we find that 1 rural consumers take up electricity consumption after electrification and that 2 low consumption levels give way to higher electricity consumption levels after only a few years this indicates immediate social benefits for households through consumption of electricity services however our analysis cannot verify a direct link between electricity use and rural income generation in the short term the results emphasize the need for government and other actors to integrate rural electrification into broader rural development strategies in order to enable long term welfare increases through electricity use

energy policies for managing china s carbon emission abstract the well documented close relationship between economic growth and energy use indicates that the emergence of a country as an economic power cannot occur without increased in energy use but just as the scale of china s rise as an economic power has no clear parallel in history its conflict between economic growth and energy use has also shattered all precedents this planet s future energy scenario hinges on the ability of this decoupling the question this policy forum addressed is how to find the optimum way to accomplish this decoupling through government directive government centered command and control approaches or cac or market forces market based instruments or mbi it concludes that market rather than government can decide the optimum way to decouple china s economic growth from energy use facilitating this decoupling driven by market force requires getting the prices right for energy

information inefficiency and willingness to pay for energy efficient technology a stated preference approach for china energy label abstract the paper examines the extent to which consumers willingness to pay for energy efficient room air conditioners may be altered by correcting the information inefficiency on the china energy label the data are collected from a discrete choice experiment with two alternatives variable speed and constant speed room air conditioners characterized by attributes of brand purchase price and energy grade three versions of the questionnaires with choice sets differing only in energy consumption indicators were distributed randomly to 1602 potential consumers in nanjing china and a sample of 1569 was obtained after dropping missing data the analysis with multinomial and mixed logit models reveal that the price premium that consumers are willing to pay for a variable speed room ac over a constant speed room ac increases significantly when energy consumption information becomes comparable and additional energy related information is provided furthermore the impact of information on wtp varies under different energy saving scenarios it is suggested that china energy label should correct information inefficiency by adopting same energy indicators for room acs with different technologies and providing energy consumption information based on different climate zones

technological progress and energy rebound effect in china s textile industry evidence and policy implications abstract although energy efficiency improvement can reduce energy consumption reduction of the effective price will also increase the demand for energy services part of this reduction is then offset because of the energy efficiency improvement the magnitude of this energy rebound effect is one of the important factors that must be considered in the formulation and implementation of energy policies the textile industry is a traditional pillar industry in china it is an important part of the national economy and contributes significantly to international trade this study uses the morishima elasticities of substitution mes model combined with asymmetric energy prices trans log cost function and other econometric methods to establish a framework to measure the rebound effect in china s textile industry the empirical results of this paper indicate that the rebound effect for china s textile industry is 20 991 this reveals that energy efficiency improvement is conducive for energy saving to a certain degree notwithstanding these results also prove that energy efficiency improvement is not the only way for china s textile industry to realize energy saving and emission reduction finally based on the analysis future policy priorities are suggested

optimal risk sharing and borrowing constraints in a continuous time model with limited commitment abstract we study a continuous time version of the optimal risk sharing problem with one sided commitment in the optimal contract the agent s consumption is a time invariant strictly increasing function of a single state variable the maximal level of the agent s income realized to date we characterize this function in terms of the agent s outside option value function and the discounted amount of time in which the agent s income process is expected to reach a new to date maximum under constant relative risk aversion we solve the model in closed form optimal consumption of the agent equals a constant fraction of his maximal income realized to date in the complete markets implementation of the optimal contract the alvarez jermann solvency constraints take the form of a simple borrowing constraint familiar from the bewley aiyagari incomplete markets models

international business cycles with endogenous incomplete markets backus kehoe and kydland 1992 baxter and crucini 1995 and stockman and tesar 1995 find two major discrepancies between standard international business cycle models with complete markets and the data in the models cross country correlations are much higher for consumption than for output while in the data the opposite is true and cross country correlations of employment and investment are negative while in the data they are positive this paper introduces a friction into a standard model that helps resolve these anomalies the friction is that international loans are imperfectly enforceable any country can renege on its debts and suffer the consequences for future borrowing to solve for equilibrium in this economy with endogenous incomplete markets the methods of marcet and marimon 1999 are extended incorporating the friction helps resolve the anomalies more than does exogenously restricting the assets that can be traded

business strategy under institutional constraints evidence from china s energy efficiency regulations abstract this paper links theoretical perspectives from energy efficiency economics with those observed from corporate environmental strategy to develop a framework for explaining energy efficiency strategies by firms in response to national policies and local regulations in china the framework is refined through analytic generalization of 20 cases from four industries and four cities in jiangsu province and reveals two strategies 1 firms with moderate institutional pressure seek incremental competitiveness by adopting energy saving technologies which is reinforced by their informational organizational and financing capabilities and facilitated by voluntary policies and industrial competition 2 firms with survival risk or development constraints under regulation seek a position favored by local governments by replacing old plant and equipment with larger more efficient ones and contributing to the local community the chinese case studies reveal a strong institutional impact on firms choice of business strategies and particularly the positioning strategy the identified business strategies shed additional light on the effectiveness and implications of different policy instruments for energy efficiency

energy poverty in rural bangladesh energy poverty is a well established concept among energy and development specialists international development organizations frequently cite energy poverty alleviation as a necessary condition to reduce income poverty several approaches used to measure energy poverty over the past 20 years have defined the energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as cooking and lighting this paper uses a demand based approach to define the energy poverty line as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income at or below this threshold point households consume a bare minimum level of energy and should be considered energy poor this approach was applied using cross sectional data from a comprehensive 2004 household survey representative of rural bangladesh the findings suggest that some 58 percent of rural households in bangladesh are energy poor versus 45 percent that are income poor the findings also suggest that policies to support rural electrification and greater use of improved biomass stoves might play a significant role in reducing energy poverty

measuring energy rebound effect in the chinese economy an economic accounting approach estimating the magnitude of china s economy wide rebound effect has attracted much attention in recent years most existing studies measure the rebound effect through the additional energy consumption from technological progress however in general technological progress is not equivalent to energy efficiency improvement consequently their estimation may be misleading to overcome the limitation this paper develops an alternative approach for estimating energy rebound effect based on the proposed approach china s economy wide energy rebound effect is revisited the empirical result shows that during the period 1981 2011 the rebound effects in china are between 30 and 40 with an average value of 34 3

the impact of the rebound effect of the use of first generation biofuels in the eu on greenhouse gas emissions a critical review an important objective of the mandated blending of biofuel in conventional gasoline and diesel in the eu is reducing greenhouse gas ghg emissions an important assumption thereby is that biofuels replace the production and consumption of oil however recent literature challenges this assumption because an increased use of biofuels will lower oil prices and therefore result in increase crude oil consumption this so called rebound effect offsets the expected ghg emission saving effects of using biofuels a review of eight studies mainly on current and future us biofuel policies provides insights in the current state of research into this topic showing a wide range of values of the rebound effect of biofuel use depending among others on the biofuel policy the applied method and the model parameter assumptions generally estimated rebound effects are negative in the country where biofuel use is being promoted i e the use of 1 unit of biofuel reduces oil consumption by less than 1 unit units on energy basis the rebound effects in other countries are always positive biofuel use reduces oil consumption by less than 1 unit so the total fuel consumption is increasing the net global rebound effect is usually positive which means that ghg emissions savings are not achieved as much as usually is assumed or emissions may even increase own estimations with the global magnet computable general equilibrium model indicate a global rebound effect of the 10 biofuel blend mandate in the eu in the year 2020 of 22 30 i e the use of 1 unit of biofuel reduces global oil consumption by 0 78 0 70 units this means that ghg emissions will not be reduced as much as usually is assumed or may even increase these results show that rebound effects can significantly lower the effectiveness of biofuel policies in reducing ghg emissions

estimating the rebound effect in us manufacturing energy consumption abstract the energy price shocks of the 1970s are usually assumed to have increased the search for new energy saving technologies where eventual gains in energy efficiencies will reduce the real per unit price of energy services and hence the consumption of energy will rise and partially offset the initial reduction in the usage of energy sources this is the rebound effect which is estimated for the us manufacturing sector using time series data applying the dynamic ols method dols when allowing for asymmetric price effects the rebound effect is found to be approximately 24 for the us manufacturing sector

the long term impacts of air pollution control policy historical links between municipal actions and industrial energy efficiency in kawasaki city japan abstract under the pressures of rapid industrialization and urbanization many asian countries are facing the challenge of reducing air pollution and co 2 emissions simultaneously while maintaining their economic growth under such a circumstance a growing attention is focused on successful implementation of co benefit policies that are designed to reduce both air pollutants and co 2 emissions however the concept of co benefit policies must be developed further in order to identify its quantitative and qualitative validity which can be assessed using a reliable methodology for the estimation of co benefits and through clarification of the importance of this approach for stakeholders in urban environmental policy making based on a systematic review of co benefit research and air pollution control policies in japan we investigated the local air pollution control policy in kawasaki city one of the industrial centers of japan and confirmed that it has contributed both to the sharp decline of atmospheric sulfur dioxide so 2 levels and to energy efficiency improvements in local industries our results suggest that preventive actions and local scale compliance enforcement tools that are uniquely designed and act as a form of agreement between government and individual firms could contribute significantly to successful implementation of co benefit policies in the long term we conclude our paper with a discussion of linkages between low carbon technology innovations and policy designs that could further nurture co benefits

who should administer energy efficiency programs the restructuring of the u s electricity industry created a crisis for ratepayer funded energy efficiency programs this paper briefly describes the reasons for the crisis and some of its consequences then the paper focuses on issues related to program administration and discusses the relative merits of entities utilities state agencies and non profit corporations that might be administrators four criteria are developed for choosing among program administration options compatibility with public policy goals effectiveness of the incentive structure ability to realize economies of scale and scope and contribution to the development of an energy efficiency infrastructure we examine one region the pacific northwest and three states new york vermont and connecticut which have made successful transitions to new governance and or administration structures attention is also given to california where large scale energy efficiency programs have continued to operate despite the fact that many of the key governance administration issues remain unresolved we observe that no single administrative structure for energy efficiency programs has yet emerged in the us that is clearly superior to all of the other alternatives we conclude that this is not likely to happen soon for three reasons first policy environments differ significantly among the states second the structure and regulation of the electric utility industry differs among the regions of the us third market transformation and resource acquisition two program strategies that were once seen as alternatives are increasingly coming to be seen as complements energy efficiency programs going forward are likely to include elements of both strategies but the administrative arrangements that are best suited to support market transformation may be different from the arrangements that are best for resource acquisition

energy supplier obligations and white certificate schemes comparative analysis of experiences in the european union abstract a number of member states of the european union eu have introduced market based policy portfolios based on quantified energy savings obligations on energy distributors or suppliers possibly coupled with certification of project based energy savings via white certificates and the option to trade the certificates or obligations the paper provides an up to date review and analysis of results to date of white certificate schemes in the eu in the eu supplier obligations and white certificate schemes have delivered larger savings than originally expected with obliged companies exceeding targets and in some cases at cost below what policy makers have anticipated supplier obligations foster the uptake of standardised energy efficiency actions often targeting smaller energy users residential sector lowering the transaction costs and contributing to market transformation the role of certificate trading is more ambiguous trading can bring benefits where the target is set sufficiently high with respect to the energy saving potential in the sectors covered theoretically trading may be better suited for broader systems with comprehensive coverage but even in smaller schemes trading may reduce the transaction costs of compliance for obliged actors without sufficient expertise on end use energy efficiency yet trading increases the administrative cost ratio of energy saving obligations

heavy duty gas turbines in iran india and china do national energy policies drive the industries this paper for the first time systematically examines the heavydutygasturbine hdgt industry in the context of developing countries it provides a comparative analysis of the hdgt industries in iran india and china it contrasts their national strategies the historical development of their technological capabilities the similarities and differences in approach the varying evolutionary paths and policy drivers and the reasons for their differing outcomes this paper argues that a high level of state involvement is a prominent feature of hdgt industries in developing countries it also argues that the development and evolution of the hdgt industries in these countries is closely interrelated with the countries national energy policies it clarifies why such an advanced and sophisticated industry is a strategic choice in one country while it is seen as an inferior choice in another

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

measuring countries environmental sustainability performance a review and case study of iceland abstract evaluating the environmental sustainability performance of a nation is complex this paper considers the merits of environmental indices and how effective they are when assessing the environmental sustainability of any nation the simplicity and generic qualities of environmental indices currently necessitates a much broader analysis in order to evaluate any nation s genuine environmental sustainability credentials ultimately the development of a synthetic environmental sustainability index is required to fulfil this task using iceland as a case study this paper reviews the usefulness of four selected environmental indices environmental vulnerability index environmental performance index ecological footprint and happy planet index for governance institutions when formulating reasoned responses to challenges by adopting a holistic methodology iceland s environmental sustainability credentials are critically examined in this paper with particular focus given to the impacts deriving from expanded renewable energy utilisation in recent years abundant geothermal and hydropower energy resources have been increasingly used to power heavy industry particularly aluminium production the wider health implications and long term environmental sustainability consequences of renewable energy utilisation have not been analysed in depth within any of the indices socio economic progress in iceland has also been attained alongside the imposition of the highest ecological footprint of any nation in the world as such economic activities in iceland have not occurred in accordance with commonly accepted notions of sustainable development which is focused upon the reconciliation of economic environmental and social objectives together with recognition of current and future need across these domains

characterization of a risk sharing contract with one sided commitment in this paper i provide a stopping time based solution to a long term contracting problem between a risk neutral principal and a risk averse agent the agent faces a stochastic income stream and cannot commit to the long term contracting relationship to compute the optimal contract i also design an algorithm that is more efficient than value function iteration

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

energy abatement in chinese industry cost evaluation of regulation strategies and allocation alternatives abstract for chinese industry the costs of different energy consumption abatement scenarios are evaluated by the method of directional distance function these scenarios are based on the combinations of regulation strategies and allocation alternatives the former are sectors and provinces and the latter include the five principles of average intensity share absolute share discriminatory absolute and discriminatory intensity for all the scenarios the quantitative impacts in terms of output potential loss are calculated and compared due to less output potential loss for all the allocation alternatives the sector regulation strategy is shown to be more effective than the province regulation strategy it is also demonstrated that among all the scenarios considered the sector regulation based on the intensity share principle and the province regulation based on the absolute share principle are the two optimal the performances of energy abatement allocation of the 11th and 12th five year plans of china are assessed against the simulated scenarios

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

energy efficiency economics and policy energy efficiency and conservation are major factors in the reduction of the environmental impact of the energy sector particularly with regard to climate change energy efficiency also contributes to reducing external dependence and vulnerabilities in the energy domain in this paper we discuss the factors that influence energy efficiency and conservation decisions and the most appropriate policies for their promotion although not all public policies seem justified we argue that specific policies for promoting energy conservation may be required preferably based on economic instruments or on the provision of information to consumers

operational performance of the bangladesh rural electrification program and its determinants with a focus on political interference abstract this article tries to quantitatively capture the effect of political intervention on the operational performance of the bangladesh rural electrification program rep firstly efficiency changes over the last 15 years of rural electric cooperatives in the rep are examined using data envelopment analysis dea then the critical determinants of the efficiency changes including political indicator are identified with an application of the tobit model results from the dea analysis show the overall efficiency score on a scale of zero to one changes in the 0 856 0 929 range in 15 years with two turnaround points in 1996 and 2001 these are the years that the national elections were held the results also find a gap between the efficient rural electric cooperatives and the inefficient rural electric cooperatives the results of the tobit model imply that political power has a negative impact on efficiency

tariff regulation with energy efficiency goals we study the optimal tariff structure that could induce a regulated utility to promote energy efficiency by its customers given that it is privately informed about the effectiveness of its effort on demand reduction the regulator should optimally offer a menu of incentive compatible two part tariffs if the firm s energy efficiency activities have a high impact on demand reduction the consumer should pay a high fixed fee but a low per unit price approximating the tariff structure to a decoupling policy which strengthens the firm s incentives to pursue energy conservation instead if the firm s effort to adopt energy efficiency actions is scarcely effective the tariff is characterized by a low fixed fee but a high price per unit of energy consumed thus shifting the incentives for energy conservation on consumers the optimal tariff structure also depends on the cost of the consumer s effort in case the consumer can also adopt energy efficiency measures and on the degree of substitutability between the consumer s and the firm s efforts

contributing to differentiated technology policy making on the promotion of energy efficiency technologies in heavy industrial sector a case study of china abstract promoting energy efficiency technologies eets in heavy industrial sector is a crucial approach for energy conservation worldwide due to the existence of various barriers the diffusion of eets is often slow and is largely influenced by policy incentives insufficient consideration of the heterogeneity of eets makes the one size fits all policy design scheme ineffective and inefficient in practice therefore this paper analyzes the design of differentiated technology policies to accelerate the promotion of eets the analysis is based on technology classification results from a bottom up technology evaluation system technical attributes were qualitatively analyzed and the 130 total technologies were divided into three segments 76 main production process technologies pp 39 process integrated resource and energy recycling technologies rer and 15 pollution control technologies pc then the 115 pp and rer technologies were quantitatively analyzed by calculating benefit cost ratio investment payback time and technical penetration the evaluation results proved that eets had marked differences in economic efficiency and technical maturity with dynamic investment payback time ranging from 0 3 to 11 years and penetrations ranging from 1 to 80 graphing investment payback time on a vertical axis and technical penetration on a horizontal axis the 115 technologies were classified into four quadrants features and policy support demands of those three types of technologies in the four quadrants were discussed and corresponding technology policies were proposed the thorough technical investigations in this study also provided a complete technological database for policy making which was freely offered on the website of china s ministry of industry and information technology

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

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

robust contracts with one sided commitment abstract we consider a robust contract with limited commitment in continuous time in which the principal firm is ambiguity averse and seeks robust decisions first we find the existence of limited commitment not only attenuates the negative effect of model uncertainty on the firm value but also makes the firm less pessimistic moreover concerns regarding model misspecification motivate the firm to increase the worker s exposure to the productivity shocks via the optimal contract finally our theoretical model predicts that the combination of limited commitment and ambiguity generates both right skewness and decreases in the wage dynamics as the empirical data

meeting electrification s social objectives in south africa and implications for developing countries electrification programmes and projects are usually planned and evaluated on the basis of their economic financial and socio economic performance it is not usually recognised that electrification is often carried out for social objectives of poverty alleviation and political effect examination of electrification in south africa reveals clearly that initial electrification was to meet economic objectives later socio economic objectives were adopted and recently the objectives were social social electrification particularly rural electrification is not viable according to usual assessment methods which are frequently distorted to provide the justification for a project to proceed the technology of network electrification changed to meet the constraints challenging usual perceptions about the relative costs of urban and rural electrification and the potential for photovoltaic electrification adopting a specification for social electrification allows suitable tariffs for electrification to be identified indicates how capital investment decisions might be modified for social electrification and identifies implications for electricity industry restructuring a better understanding of electrification s social objectives has implications for projects and programmes in other developing countries

fiscal impacts of energy efficiency programmes the example of solid wall insulation investment in the uk programmes supporting the installation of energy efficiency measures typically incur a cost in the form of subsidies as well as lost vat income due to reduced energy consumption those costs are to some extent offset by the tax receipts and other revenue streams generated as a result of the activities promoted under the programme in this paper we analyse the budgetary effects of energy efficiency programmes focusing on the example of solid wall insulation in the uk three distinct subsidy options have been defined and modelled for the purpose of this research including two policies with varying degrees of direct subsidy and a low interest loan scheme our analysis shows that a significant amount of the cost of a scheme funding solid wall insulation would be offset by increased revenues and savings a loan scheme due to the high leverage achieves not only budget neutrality but generates additional revenue for the exchequer

framing energy efficiency and renewable energy policies an international comparison between mexico and china abstract this essay compares national strategies on mitigation of ghg emissions for mexico and china this state centered analysis stresses the importance of the interaction between international commitments the disposition of internal interest of economy wide actors and the legacies of policy making and institutions particularly in relation to economic development and central local government relations this research does not attempt to classify institutions according to their effectives to foster climate change policies but rather explores specific circumstances for climate change policy making on developing countries contrary to international proposal to find a generic optimal policy choice the research explored the relevance of certain political and economic institutions that can be present in other national cases it shows that the legacies on liberalization and state retreat undermine the state ability to effectively engage with the economic actors on decisions and management likewise regular engagement with them undermines the state affinity towards pursuing economic efficient solutions the relevance of adequate system of incentives for local government to engage in an agenda that is by nature adopted by the central government

rewarding energy savings rather than energy efficiency exploring the concept of a feed in tariff for energy savings abstract financial incentives are important for overcoming certain market barriers to improved energy efficiency and for the adoption of energy efficient technologies financial incentives are mainly focused on the introduction of specific technologies rather than behavioural change while the declared goal of financial support schemes very often is to save energy or reduce harmful emissions rather than to foster new technologies per se it is often encountered that such financial support for energy efficient technologies may not ensure real energy savings due to the rebound effect and various market barriers in the area of renewable energies it is common for financial support to be given to power producers for the verified production of renewable electricity in the form of a guaranteed financial incentive feed in tariff in the energy efficiency policy research little attention has been paid to the possible use of a feed in tariff in the form of a financial incentive based on the kwh saved by the end user this paper discusses the possible setup of a feed in tariff designed to reward energy savings

a multi criteria evaluation framework for tradable white certificate schemes recent years have witnessed regained political momentum on energy efficiency and interest in establishing markets is growing as a result tradable white certificate twc schemes of differing design have been implemented in great britain italy and france much attention is being paid to justifying and evaluating such schemes in this paper we develop and apply a multi criteria framework for evaluating twc schemes an approach that attempts to cover their individual design features a broad evaluation is conducted regarding energy saving and environmental effectiveness economic efficiency cost effectiveness transaction costs political feasibility administrative burden and technical change the results show the design and performance of twc schemes to be case and context specific and generalisations are thus inappropriate this evaluation supports the cost effectiveness modelled for the british scheme and the assumption that a twc scheme is an economically efficient policy instrument for the other more complex twc schemes more data and experience are needed to judge their ex post merit on the whole the proposed multi criteria evaluation requires considerable data and complementary methods however the framework improves the understanding of the broad effects and attributes of twc schemes it deals with various empirical and normative aspects that can be applied in their evaluation

optimal lending contracts and firm dynamics we develop a general model of lending in the presence of endogenous borrowing constraints borrowing constraints arise because borrowers face limited liability and debt repayment cannot be perfectly enforced in the model the dynamics of debt are closely linked with the dynamics of borrowing constraints in fact borrowing constraints must satisfy a dynamic consistency requirement the value of outstanding debt restricts current access to short term capital but is itself determined by future access to credit this dynamic consistency is not guaranteed in models of exogenous borrowing constraints where the ability to raise short term capital is limited by some prespecified function of debt we characterize the optimal default free contract which minimizes borrowing constraints at all histories and derive implications for firm growth survival leverage and debt maturity the model is qualitatively consistent with stylized facts on the growth and survival of firms comparative statics with respect to technology and default constraints are derived borrowing constraints are an important determinant of firm growth and survival 1 such constraints may arise in connection to the financing of investment opportunities faced by firms or temporary liquidity needs such as those required to survive a recession this paper develops a theory of endogenous borrowing constraints and studies its implications for firm dynamics in our model debt is constrained by the firm s limited liability and option to default a lending contract specifies an initial loan size future financing and a repayment schedule the choice of these variables in turn determines future growth the firm s future borrowing capacity and its ability and willingness to repay hence borrowing constraints and firm dynamics are jointly determined we study this dynamic design problem our model builds on thomas and worral s 1994 model of foreign direct investment at time zero a risk neutral borrower firm or entrepreneur has a project which requires a fixed initial set up cost every period the project yields revenues that increase with the amount of 1 there is considerable evidence suggesting that financing constraints are important determinants of firm dynamics gertler and gilchrist 1994 argue that liquidity constraints may explain why small manufacturing firms respond more to a tightening of monetary policy than do larger manufacturing firms perez quiros and timmermann 2000 show that in recessions smaller firms are more sensitive to the worsening of credit market conditions as measured by higher interest rates and default premia evans and jovanovic 1989 show that the liquidity constraints are essential in the decision to become an entrepreneur fazzari hubbard and petersen 1988 among others view financial constraints as an explanation for the dynamic behaviour of aggregate investment and cabral and mata 1996 are able to fit reasonably well the size distribution of portuguese manufacturing firms by estimating a simple model of financing constraints for surveys see hubbard 1998 and stein 2003

energy efficiency policy impact in india case study of investment in industrial energy efficiency the objective of this paper is to identify the effectiveness of energy policy and capital investment in energy efficiency technologies in the industrial sector in india indian energy policies relating to industrial energy efficiency over the past 25 years are briefly reviewed and a comparison study of these energy efficiency policies and strategies in india and china has been carried out interviews were conducted with a number of government policy making institutions and a national industrial development bank the accounts of 26 industrial enterprises which applied and used a loan of the asian development bank were audited for data collection field visits to seven industrial entrepreneurs were undertaken in a case study methodologies used in this study include documentation cross country reviews on energy policies questionnaire design and distribution in the industrial sector and on site auditing of energy efficiency technologies this paper concludes that current energy policies and strategies in india need further improvement to promote energy efficiency investment and energy efficiency technology development in the industrial sector this paper will interest those policy makers and industrial entrepreneurs who are willing to finance energy efficiency projects and improve energy efficiency in the industrial sector

industrial electricity demand and energy efficiency policy the role of price changes and private r d in the swedish pulp and paper industry abstract the objective of this paper is to analyze electricity demand behaviour in the swedish pulp and paper industry in the context of the increased interest in so called voluntary energy efficiency programs in these programs tax exemptions are granted if the participating firms carry out energy efficiency measures following an energy audit we employ a panel data set of 19 pulp and paper firms and estimate both the own and cross price elasticities of electricity demand as well as the impact of knowledge accumulation following private r d on electricity use the empirical results show that electricity use in the swedish pulp and paper industry is relatively own price insensitive and the self reported electricity savings following the voluntary so called pfe program support the notion of important information asymmetries at the company level however the results display that already in a baseline setting pulp and paper firms tend to invest in private r d that have electricity saving impacts and our model simulations suggest that up to about one third of the industry sector s self reported electricity savings in pfe could be attributable to pure baseline effects future evaluations of voluntary energy efficiency programs must increasingly recognize the already existing incentives to reduce energy use in energy intensive industries

a review of optimal energy policy instruments on industrial energy efficiency programs rebound effects and government policies abstract industrial energy efficiency programs ieeps are defined as one of the most popular government policies that aim to reduce energy consumption in industrial energy intensive sectors in this paper we review and classify the most important academic studies that have addressed the environmental and economic aspects of ieeps using a systematic review the classification of energy policy instruments has been developed based on an analytical approach we discuss also the outputs benefits and barriers of ieeps besides a comprehensive argument about the restrictive policies on the rebound effects made after the implementation of these programs the results disclose that china usa and sweden are the most addressed countries on ieeps and their applications in this regard incentive energy policies e g voluntary agreements and subsidies have been applied more than others in the last decade furthermore most of the reviewed studies emphasize energy price reform as an effective practical policy while a few analytical methods can be seen to help policy makers determine the optimal levels of decision variables finally according to the state of the art analysis the authors provide some novel recommendations to improve the performance of ieeps using some restrictive policies on the negative impacts of rebound effects

ex post assessment of china s industrial energy efficiency policies during the eleventh five year plan abstract china implemented a package of policies during the 11th five year plan 2006 2010 to improve industrial energy efficiency this assessment provides a methodology that establishes a causal relationship between policy implementation and energy conservation effects to enhance the confidence in the research findings this assessment applies two distinctive and independent approaches one top down and the other bottom up this assessment finds that industrial energy efficiency policies collectively achieved energy savings of 322 mtce 9 4 ej against the baseline scenario this accounted for 59 of the sector s total energy savings from 2006 to 2010 the remaining energy savings were realised through autonomous technology improvement 33 and sector level structural shift 8 correspondingly cumulative avoided co2 emissions realised through energy efficiency policies amounted to 760 million tons this assessment concludes that industrial energy efficiency policies were effective in realising energy conservation targets but energy conservation effects were not achieved in a cost effective way command and control measures were dominantly implemented with economic incentives and informational measures taking a complementary role while market based instruments did not play an important role as china is planning on implementing a nationwide emissions trading scheme special attention needs to be paid to policy interaction and coordination

competitive risk sharing contracts with one sided commitment this paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex post in any given period after having observed her income the agent can walk away from the contract while the intermediary cannot i e there is one sided commitment we consider the extreme scenario that the agents face no costs to walking away and can sign up with any competing intermediary without any reputational losses we demonstrate that not only autarky but also partial and full insurance can obtain depending on the relative patience of agents and financial intermediaries insurance can be provided because in an equilibrium contract an up front payment effectively locks in the agent with an intermediary we then show that our contract economy is equivalent to a consumption savings economy with one period arrow securities and a short sale constraint similar to bulow and rogoff 1989 from this equivalence and our characterization of dynamic contracts it immediately follows that without cost of switching financial intermediaries debt contracts are not sustainable even though a risk allocation superior to autarky can be achieved

rural electrification under liberal reforms the case of peru abstract liberal reform programmes in developing countries were not designed with the need to extend electricity supplies to rural areas this paper focuses on the peruvian experience examining the impact of electricity reform policies on the characteristics of rural electrification in rural areas electrification levels have traditionally been the lowest in the country making them less or non profitable for private firms only in 2002 did the government introduce a specific rural electrification law which was intended to promote electrification within the context of a liberalised market this paper draws upon an analysis of both this piece of legislation and stakeholder interviews indicating that there exists a need to look further into the evolving relationship between the private and public sectors and how it affects the rural poor this study forms part of the resurl international research project on renewable energy for sustainable rural livelihoods in developing countries funded by the uk government s department for international development dfid

on repeated moral hazard with discounting in this paper we analyze optimal contracts in an infinitely repeated agency model in which both the principal and agent discount the future we show that there is a stationary representation of the optimal contract when the agent s conditional discounted expected utility is used as a state variable this representation reduces the multi period problem to a static variational problem which can be analyzed using standard variational techniques this reduction is used to obtain several properties of the contract

debt constrained asset markets we develop a theory of general equilibrium with endogenous debt limits in the form of individual rationality constraints similar to those in the dynamic consistency literature if an agent defaults on a contract he can be excluded from future contingent claims markets trading and can have his assets seized he cannot be excluded from spot markets trading however and he has some private endowments that cannot be seized all information is publicly held and common knowledge and there is a complete set of contingent claims markets since there is complete information an agent cannot enter into a contract in which he would have an incentive to default in some state in general there is only partial insurance variations in consumption may be imperfectly correlated across agents interest rates may be lower than they would be without constraints and equilibria may be pareto ranked

barriers to energy efficiency in industrial bottom up energy demand models a review the goal of this paper is to review bottom up models for industrial energy demand with a particular focus on their capability to model barriers to the adoption of energy efficient technologies the integration of barriers into the models is an important prerequisite for a more detailed and realistic modeling of policies for energy efficiency particularly with the emergence of more and more varying policy instruments it also becomes crucial for the models to take account of these policies as well as the barriers they address in a more realistic way our review revealed that despite the broadly evident existence of market failures and barriers for energy efficient technologies they are only partly and in a rather aggregated form considered in today s bottom up models the state of the art bottom up model is based on an explicit representation of the technology stock and considers the costs of energy efficiency options in detail but with regard to barriers most models only make use of an aggregated approach like an adjusted discount rate while some models do not even consider technology costs and energy prices but instead use exogenous technology diffusion rates other more advanced models took first steps towards considering barriers in more detail the latter allows differentiation between multiple parameters that influence technology adoption still even in the most advanced models only a few of the observed barriers are explicitly considered at the same time new approaches to considering barriers like uncertainty or the slow spread of information are being developed in other disciplines we conclude the paper by summarizing promising ways to improve representation of barriers in bottom up models

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

research and development aspects on decentralized electrification options for rural household abstract low income households living in the rural areas suffer from energy poverty and lack of human and economic development currently many governments of less developed countries are committed in improving access to electricity the same commitment should be adapted globally as part of human right because providing electricity access to low income households improves health and education generates income increases productivity reduces inequality and enhances the quality of life rural electrification is a complicated issue because of user affordability rural inaccessibility and remoteness low population densities and dispersed households low project profitability fiscal deficit scarcity of energy resources population growth lack of professionalism and over dependence on subsidies the demand for electrification cannot be accomplished because of the increasing gap between rural electrification rate and population growth therefore this review aims to study various decentralized household sized energy technologies available in rural areas such as battery diesel generator pedal generator pico hydro photovoltaic pv solar home system and wind preference for one of the options depends on energy source availability economic feasibility rural economic development disposal of residues nature of end user application and government programs and policies pico hydro is the preferred electricity generation source in most rural households followed by wind pv and diesel generators this paper concurs that households in rural areas will be able to afford for electricity access if the payment schedule of the electrification cost is extended and interest rates and taxes if any are dropped

self enforcing wage contracts we examine long term wage contracts between a risk neutral firm and a risk averse worker when both can costlessly renege and buy or sell labour at a random spot market wage a self enforcing contract is one in which neither party ever has an incentive to renege in the optimum self enforcing contract wages are sticky they are less variable than spot market wages and positively serially correlated they are updated by a simple rule around each spot wage is a time invariant interval and the contract wage changes each period by the smallest amount necessary to bring it into the current interval