Energy economics of cooking in households in Nepal

This paper focuses on the economic analysis of energy consumed for cooking in urban households in Nepal. In this paper, annual energy requirements, energy efficiency, various combinations of fuels, stoves and utensils used for cooking and their corresponding costs have been examined through lab experiments and surveys. The estimate of system efficiencies for household cooking is one of the major contributions of this paper. The paper also discusses costs of energy use and compares various energy alternatives for cooking. It is believed that the analysis presented here will be helpful to the policy planners to devise better energy options for households.     

Provision of electricity to African households: The importance of democracy and institutional quality

How can differences in per capita household electricity consumption across African countries be understood? Based on theories that highlight the importance of democracy and institutional quality for provision of public goods, the aim of the paper is to analyse the degree to which the level of per capita household electricity consumption in African countries can be attributed to the countries’ democratic status and their institutional quality. We rely on regression analysis employing a pooled data set for 44 African countries over the time period 1996–2009. The analysis shows that democracy and institutional quality both have significant positive effects on per capita household consumption of electricity. Our results have implications for how energy sector reforms are promoted in developing countries. At a more general level they illustrate that institution-building policy efforts are relevant also in areas where contemporary debates have tended to primarily centre on economic development, financial prerequisites and ownership issues.     

Energy subsidies and costs in urban Ethiopia: The cases of kerosene and electricity

Making energy affordable to the poor is a widely cited reason for subsidies. Whether subsidies achieve this objective is rarely analysed. In this article, the significance of kerosene and electricity subsidies in relation to the purchasing power of Ethiopian urban households is examined. The results indicate that subsidies on kerosene prices and electricity tariffs do not significantly change the overall costs for households. Even poor households on the average have the purchasing power to access unsubsidised kerosene. The overall costs—including fixed costs—of accessing electricity are very high relative to purchasing power even for the well to do urban households if down payments are made. But when costs are spread over the lifespan of fixed components, even the average poor have the purchasing power to access electricity. These results underscore the importance of a mechanism that spreads fixed costs over longer periods of time. Spreading fixed costs over electricity bills and providing credit facilities are two options that can ameliorate the condition.     

Assessing energy supply security: Outage costs in private households

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the topic of energy supply security by proposing a Monte Carlo-based and a survey based model to analyze the costs of power interruptions. Outage cost estimations are particularly important when deciding on investments to improve supply security (e.g. additional transmission lines) in order to compare costs to benefits. But also other policy decisions on measures that have direct or indirect consequences for the supply security (e.g. a phasing out of nuclear energy) need to be based on results from outage cost estimations. The main focus of this paper lies with residential consumers, but the model is applied to commercial, industrial and governmental consumers as well. There are limited studies that have approached the problem of evaluating outage cost. When comparing the results of these studies, they often display a high degree of diversification. As consumers have different needs and dependencies towards the supply of electricity because of varying circumstances and preferences, a great diversity in outage cost is a logical consequence. To take the high degree of uncertainties into account, a Monte Carlo simulation was conducted in this study for the case of private households in Germany.     

On the adoption of electricity as a domestic source by Mozambican households

In Mozambique, domestic energy is often composed of a mix of sources, primarily used for lighting and cooking, with biomass and kerosene as more common sources. Electrification programs, intended to connect new consumers countrywide, have not significantly contributed either to the intensification of electricity consumption or to the reduction of the use of biomass in households. The choice of energy source is dependent on price and on the capability of the household to invest in energy-consuming appliances. Based on the data from a household survey carried out in Mozambique during 2002/03, this paper analyzes the geographic differences in unit expenditures for domestic energy and finds evidence of an inverted energy ladder with prices of useful energy units. The data show that biomass sources are often more expensive per unit of useful energy than higher-grade sources, supporting arguments favoring electrification as a poverty alleviation strategy. In addition, this study estimates the likelihood of poor households transitioning from biomass to electricity consumption based on various factors. Results indicate that income is not a determining factor in the transition, but wealth and the level of the Primary Energy Consumption Share (PECS) are as important factors as the nature of the energy mix.     

External costs of electricity production: case study Croatia

Because electricity production is one of the major sources of pollution, and at the same time is the most centralised one, environmental issues in power system operation and planning are gaining ever-increasing attention. It is very difficult to compare environmental impacts of various electricity generation technologies and fuel types because they are extremely divergent. The most widely accepted common denominator today is the so-called external cost by which a monetary value is associated with environmental damage.In this paper, damages to human health resulting from Croatian thermal power plants annual operation are presented. Stack emissions have been translated into ambient concentrations by atmospheric dispersion modelling. Existing data on relations between human health degradation and ground concentrations of the analysed pollutants have been used. Geographic information software has been used in order to account for spatially dependent data.Monetary values have been assigned to the estimated human health damage. External costs resulting from impact of Croatian thermal power plants airborne emissions on human health have been calculated. The total Croatian thermal power system external costs, resulting from impacts on human health, are presented and discussed.     

Environmental degradation costs in electricity generation: The case of the Brazilian electrical matrix

The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of including environmental degradation costs in the long-term planning of the Brazilian electricity sector. To this aim, environmental external costs associated to both hydro-power and thermal-power electricity generation are investigated. Monetary valuation methodologies are applied and environmental degradation costs, expressed in per kWh of generated energy, are obtained for the main types of generation sources of the Brazilian electricity matrix. Both local pollution due to particulate matter emissions and global warming effects are assessed. A classification of the sources from the point of view of their impact on the environment is given. Degradation costs associated to the installed capacity expansion in the Brazilian electricity sector during the time horizon 2007–2016 are estimated. These resulting costs represent lower boundary damage estimates associated only with the energy to be generated during the period. Results indicate that local pollution caused by a small number of plants could be even more costly to society than global warming and, also, show the importance of considering not only unitary damage costs but the participation of each source on the generated energy during the time horizon, as a guide to planning and policy making.     

External costs of fossil electricity generation: Health-based assessment in Thailand

Airborne pollutants from fossil fuel burning in electricity generation potentially contribute a number of consequent environmental impacts. In order to indicate the actual costs of energy, a so-called external cost has become of growing concerns internationally. This study aims to evaluate the external costs related to human health degradation resulting from Thai electricity generation produced from fossil fuel which operated during the period from 2006 to 2008. Impact Pathway Approach (IPA) was applied in the analysis. The advections of the criteria pollutants (SO₂, NO_X, and PM₁₀) including secondary particulates (sulfate and nitrate aerosols) had been simulated using the CALMET/CALPUFF modeling system. Subsequently, the exposure-response functions (ERFs) were used to quantify the marginal damage to public health. Finally, costs of such damages were then estimated based on welfare economics. The results showed that the criteria pollutants caused significant damage to both premature mortality and morbidity. The average damage cost was totally about 600 million 2005 US$ annually which ranged between 0.05 and 4.17 US$ cent kWh⁻¹ depending on fuel types. It implies that the external costs are significant to the determination of electricity market price. With the damage costs being included, the electricity price will reflect the true costs of the generation which will be beneficial to the society as a whole.     

Internalising external costs of electricity and heat production in a municipal energy system

Both energy supply and waste treatment give rise to negative effects on the environment, so-called external effects. In this study, monetary values on external costs collected from the EU′s ExternE project are used to evaluate inclusion of these costs in comparison with an energy utility perspective including present policy instruments. The studied object is a municipal district heating system with a waste incineration plant as the base supplier of heat. The evaluation concerns fuels used for heat production and total electricity production, for scenarios with external costs included and for a scenario using the present policy instrument.     

External costs of electricity generation options in Lithuania

This article deals with external cost of electricity generation in Lithuania. The external costs of electricity generation are the most important environmental criteria shaping decisions within the electricity system. External costs of electricity generation were calculated based on ExternE methodology for Lithuania during EU (European Union) Framework 6 project Cost Assessment for Sustainable Energy Systems (CASES). The article presents the methodology and results of external costs of electricity generation in Lithuania. The assessment of external costs provided that future energy policy should be oriented towards the renewable energy generation technologies having the lowest external costs. External costs for electricity generation technologies were analysed in terms of external costs categories, electricity generation technologies life cycle stages and time frame 2010–2030.     

Economic costs of electricity supply interruptions: US and foreign experience

This paper investigates the costs of interruptions in electricity service to customers. This information is a key input in planning power system reliability using an economic cost-benefit approach. The paper reviews the literature from the perspective of identifying alternate methodological approaches used, their strengths and weaknesses, and potential for bias; it presents and compares outage cost estimates found in the literature on a common denominator basis; it attempts to explain the sources of the wide range of variation observed in different study estimates; and it identifies the need for further work on this important topic.     

Conditions and costs for renewables electricity grid connection: Examples in Europe

This paper compares conditions and costs for RES-E grid connection in selected European countries. These are Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Lithuania and Slovenia. Country specific case studies are presented for wind onshore and offshore, biomass and photovoltaic power systems, as based on literature reviews and stakeholder interviews. It is shown that, especially for wind offshore, the allocation of grid connection costs can form a significant barrier for the installation of new RES-E generation if the developer has to bear all such costs. If energy policy makers want to reduce the barriers for new large-scale RES-E deployment, then it is concluded that the grid connection costs should be covered by the respective grid operator. These costs may then be recouped by increasing consumer tariffs for the use of the grid.     

Energy allocations for cooking in UP households (India): A fuzzy multi-objective analysis

Planning for proper deployment of energy resources for different end uses is important. The choice of energy resources involves an effort to synthesise suggestions coming from various areas as well as the subjectivity of the decision maker. The fuzzy approach is becoming important in such decision scenarios. In this paper, the multi-objective energy resource allocation problem is studied in a fuzzy manner, with the linear fuzzification of objectives, which include economic, environmental, technical and other concerns. The concept of operational adequacy measure, as a measure of the degree of satisfaction, is introduced. The cooking energy sources for the household sector of Uttar Pradesh (India) are considered as an illustration of the approach. Scenario development has also been implemented. LPG, biogas and fuelwood should be readily promoted under all circumstances. Solar thermal energy can be promoted except in the ‘economic-oriented’ scenario, where charcoal gets preference. Grid electricity finds favour in the ‘energy conservation and rationalisation’ scenario. The overall operational adequacy measure is 0.454, which decreases under different scenarios. The minimum satisfaction is achieved in the ‘environment-oriented scenario’. A ranking of the objective functions and the optimal and non-optimal sources has also been determined.     

Internalizing carbon costs in electricity markets: Using certificates in a load-based emissions trading scheme

Several western states have considered developing a regulatory approach to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electric power industry, referred to as a load-based (LB) cap-and-trade scheme. A LB approach differs from the traditional source-based (SB) cap-and-trade approach in that the emission reduction obligation is placed upon Load Serving Entities (LSEs), rather than electric generators. The LB approach can potentially reduce the problem of emissions leakage, relative to a SB system. For any of these proposed LB schemes to be effective, they must be compatible with modern, and increasingly competitive, wholesale electricity markets. LSE's are unlikely to know the emissions associated with their power purchases. Therefore, a key challenge for a LB scheme is how to assign emissions to each LSE. This paper discusses the problems with one model for assigning emissions under a LB scheme and proposes an alternative, using unbundled Generation Emission Attribute Certificates. By providing a mechanism to internalize an emissions price signal at the generator dispatch level, the tradable certificate model addresses both these problems and provides incentives identical to a SB scheme.     

Beyond electricity: The potential of ocean thermal energy and ocean technology ecoparks in small tropical islands

Small islands face difficult challenges to guarantee energy, freshwater and food supply, and sustainable development. The urge to meet their needs, together with the mitigation and adaptation plans to address climate change, have led them to develop renewable energy systems, with a special interest in Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) in tropical islands. Deep Ocean Water (DOW) is a resource that can provide electricity (through OTEC in combination with warm surface water), low temperatures for refrigeration, and nutrients for food production. In this paper we propose an Ocean Technology Ecopark (OTEP) as an integral solution for small islands that consists of an OTEC plant, other alternative uses of DOW, and a Research and Development (R&D) center. We present an application of OTEP to San Andres, a Colombian island that meets all the necessary conditions for the implementation of OTEC technology, water desalinization, and a business model for DOW. We present the main entrance barriers and a four-stage roadmap for the consolidation and sustainability of the OTEP.     

Potential for reducing electricity demand for lighting in households: An exploratory socio-technical study

Illuminance data were collected from 18 UK dwellings during 1-week periods in spring 2007, to establish when luminaires were used and to calculate electricity consumption for lighting. Householders were also interviewed about lighting use and choices. The potential for reducing lighting electricity consumption by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) is assessed. Mean weekly electricity consumption for lighting was 3.756 kW h and mean proportion of total electricity consumption used for lighting was 6.55%. It is notable, however, that participants generally expressed high levels of environmental awareness and that electricity consumption figures for less environmentally-aware households may differ. On average, households could have reduced lighting electricity consumption by 50.9% if all incandescent bulbs were replaced with CFLs. Even householders making extensive use of efficient lighting technologies expressed concerns about these technologies’ performance, but seemed willing to tolerate perceived shortcomings for environmental reasons. However, the study raises questions about whether people without strong environmental motivations can be convinced that efficient lighting technologies will meet their needs. It also raises questions about the effectiveness of policies phasing out general lighting service incandescent bulbs, as there is a risk that householders may switch to tungsten halogen bulbs rather than low-energy options.     

A multi-sourced data based framework for assisting utilities identify energy poor households: a case-study in Greece

ABSTRACT

This study introduces a framework that assists utilities effectively identify energy poor households among their clients. The framework is established upon an enhanced version of the well-known 10% measurement index, being adjusted by a set of weather-driven, income-oriented, and energy-oriented variables so that more accurate, indicative, and objective results are automatically derived through multi-sourced data. The proposed framework differs from the common, income-based ones, as well as other approaches that integrate information about the particularities of the households and their occupants, in a sense that it deconstructs energy poverty into its two core components, namely energy and income, and examines them jointly. The proposed framework is demonstrated in the region of Attica, Greece, exploiting a large dataset of households that use natural gas as a primary heating energy source. The results highlight the strengths of the proposed method, indicating also some of its limitations.     

The value of supply security: The costs of power outages to Austrian households,firms and the public sector

This paper presents a model for assessing economic losses caused by electricity cuts as well as Willingness-to-Pay to avoid these power outages as an approximation to the value of supply security. The economic effects for simulated power cuts from 1 to 48 h, which take the affected provinces, the day of the week and the time of day into consideration, can be calculated using the assessment tool APOSTEL. The costs due to power cuts are computed separately for all sectors of the economy and for households. The average value of lost load for Austrian households and non-household consumers in the case of a power cut of 1 h on a summer workday morning was calculated to be 17.1 € per kWh of electricity not supplied.     

Area- and time-specific marginal capacity costs of electricity distribution

Marginal costs of electricity vary by time and location. In the past, researchers attributed the variations to factors related to electricity generation and transmission. These authors, however, have not analyzed possible variations in marginal distribution capacity costs (MDCC). The objectives of this paper are:

1. (i) to show that large MDCC variations are due to the dispersion in distribution capital expenditures by time and space,

2. (ii) to propose a method for quantifying the area- and time-specific MDCC in the presence of lumpy investments, and

3. (iii) to compare our MDCC estimates to those commonly used in the electric utility industry.

Our proposed method and its results were adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in 1992 for Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), the largest privately owned electric utility in the U.S.     

Synergies and trade-offs between governance and costs in electricity system transition

Affordability and costs of an energy transition are often viewed as the most influential drivers. Conversely, multi-level transitions theory argues that governance and the choices of key actors, such as energy companies, government and civil society, drive the transition, not only on the basis of costs. This paper combines the two approaches and presents a cost appraisal of the UK transition to a low-carbon electricity system under alternate governance logics. A novel approach is used that links qualitative governance narratives with quantitative transition pathways (electricity system scenarios) and their appraisal. The results contrast the dominant market-led transition pathway (Market Rules) with alternate pathways that have either stronger governmental control elements (Central Co-ordination), or bottom-up proactive engagement of civil society (Thousand Flowers). Market Rules has the lowest investment costs by 2050. Central Co-ordination is more likely to deliver the energy policy goals and possibly even a synergistic reduction in the total system costs, if policies can be enacted and maintained. Thousand Flowers, which envisions wider participation of the society, comes at the expense of higher investment and total system costs. The paper closes with a discussion of the policy implications from cost drivers and the roles of market, government and society.