Closing the California Clean Energy Divide: Reducing Electric Bills in Affordable Multifamily Rental Housing with Solar+storage

This economic analysis indicates that pairing solar PV with battery storage systems can deliver significant electricity bill savings for California affordable housing residents and property owners.Battery storage is emerging as an effective new strategy for reducing electricity costs for affordable multifamily rental housing in California. Battery storage systems not only provide economic returns today, they can also preserve the value of solar in an evolving policy and regulatory environment. Because batteries empower owners of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to take control of the energy they produce and when they consume it, storage can deliver deeper cost reductions that can be shared among affordable housing owners, developers, and tenants.California has installed numerous integrated solar and battery storage projects; however, few have served lowincome tenants or owners of affordable rental housing. This disparity is due to many factors, including a lack of information about the economics of these systems in multifamily housing. To provide that needed information, Clean Energy Group, California Housing Partnership, and Center for Sustainable Energy, with analytical support from Geli, are embarking on a series of reports on solar and storage in California affordable multifamily rental housing.This first report examines the utility bill impacts of adding battery storage to stand-alone solar in affordable rental housing facilities in California's three investor-owned utility service territories, each with different rate structures. It is the first such report ever completed on these technologies in this sector in California.The report reaches several key conclusions:Under current utility rate tariffs, the combination of solar and storage technologies could virtually eliminate electric bills for many owners of affordable housing properties. Unlike stand-alone solar, which reduces energy consumption expenses but does little to offset demand related charges, a properly sized solar and battery storage system can eliminate nearly all electricity expenses, resulting in an annual electric utility bill of less than a few hundred dollars in some cases.It makes good economic sense today for solar and battery storage to be installed in affordable multifamily rental housing in California. The addition of battery storage to solar improves the economics of each property analyzed across all utility territories, reducing project payback by over three years in some cases.The addition of storage technologies has the potential to nearly double stand-alone solar electricity bill savings at about a third of the cost of solar. For example, the addition of a $112,100 battery storage system to a$385,000 solar installation increased savings from $15,000 per year to$27,900, an 85 percent increase in savings for only a 29 percent increase in cost

Financial crises and the attainment of the SDGs: an adjusted multidimensional poverty approach

This paper analyses the impact of financial crises on the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating poverty. To do so, we develop an adjusted Multidimensional Poverty Framework (MPF) that includes 15 indicators that span across key poverty aspects related to income, basic needs, health, education and the environment. We then use an econometric model that allows us to examine the impact of financial crises on these indicators in 150 countries over the period 1980–2015. Our analysis produces new estimates on the impact of financial crises on poverty’s multiple social, economic and environmental aspects and equally important captures dynamic linkages between these aspects. Thus, we offer a better understanding of the potential impact of current debt dynamics on Multidimensional Poverty and demonstrate the need to move beyond the boundaries of SDG1, if we are to meet the target of eradicating poverty. Our results indicate that the current financial distress experienced by many low-income countries may reverse the progress that has been made hitherto in reducing poverty. We find that financial crises are associated with an approximately 10% increase of extreme poor in low-income countries. The impact is even stronger in some other poverty aspects. For instance, crises are associated with an average decrease of government spending in education by 17.72% in low-income countries. The dynamic linkages between most of the Multidimensional Poverty indicators, warn of a negative domino effect on a number of SDGs related to poverty, if there is a financial crisis shock. To pre-empt such a domino effect, the specific SDG target 17.4 on attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies plays a key role and requires urgent attention by the international community

Ex-post Implementation with Interdependent Valuations

We consider a social choice setting with multidimensional signals and interdependent valuations. Such frameworks have been recently and increasingly used in order to study multi-object auctions. We obtain concise characterizations of ex-post implementable (not necessarily efficient) social choice functions in terms of affine functions that associate a weight to each agent and to each alternative. These characterizations can greatly reduce the complexity of the search for a constrained efficient (i.e., second best) mechanism in the generic cases where efficient outcomes cannot be implemented.

Ex-post implementation with interdependent valuations

We consider a social choice setting with multidimensional signals and interdependent valuations. Such frameworks have been recently and increasingly used in order to study multi-object auctions. We obtain concise characterizations of ex-post implementable (not necessarily efficient) social choice functions in terms of affine functions that associate a weight to each agent and to each alternative. These characterizations can greatly reduce the complexity of the search for a constrained efficient (i.e., second best) mechanism in the generic cases where efficient outcomes cannot be implemented

Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals leads to lower world population growth

Here we show the extent to which the expected world population growth could be lowered by successfully implementing the recently agreed-upon Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs include specific quantitative targets on mortality, reproductive health, and education for all girls by 2030, measures that will directly and indirectly affect future demographic trends. Based on a multidimensional model of population dynamics that stratifies national populations by age, sex, and level of education with educational fertility and mortality differentials, we translate these goals into SDG population scenarios, resulting in population sizes between 8.2 and 8.7 billion in 2100. Because these results lie outside the 95% prediction range given by the 2015 United Nations probabilistic population projections, we complement the study with sensitivity analyses of these projections that suggest that those prediction intervals are too narrow because of uncertainty in baseline data, conservative assumptions on correlations, and the possibility of new policies influencing these trends. Although the analysis presented here rests on several assumptions about the implementation of the SDGs and the persistence of educational, fertility, and mortality differentials, it quantitatively illustrates the view that demography is not destiny and that policies can make a decisive difference. In particular, advances in female education and reproductive health can contribute greatly to reducing world population growth

The new urban paradigm

This paper argues in favor of a new urban model that harnesses the power that cities have to curb global warming. Such a model tackles fundamental management challenges in the energy, building and transport sectors to promote the growth of diverse and compact cities. Such a model is essential for meeting complex challenges in cities, such as promoting a cohesive social life and a competitive economic base while simultaneously preserving agricultural and natural systems crucial to soil, energy, and material resources. With most of the population living in urban areas, the G20 should recognize the key role that cities play in addressing global challenges such as climate change. Improved measures taken by cities should be an indispensable solution. The G20 Development Working Group, Climate Sustainability Working Group, and Energy Transitions Working Group should incorporate an urban approach to discussions related to climate change.Fil: Lanfranchi, Gabriel. Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento; ArgentinaFil: Herrero, Ana Carolina. Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento; ArgentinaFil: Rueda Palenzuela, Salvador. Agencia Ecología Urbana Barcelona; EspañaFil: Camilloni, Ines Angela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; ArgentinaFil: Bauer, Steffen. German Development Institute; Alemani

Aplicación de los principios de inteligencia artificial para el autoaprendizaje, autocorrección y autoevaluación de prácticas gráficas

Con el objeto de impulsar nuevos métodos que mejoren la calidad docente, hemos realizado esta investigación para ofrecer nuevos procedimientos de evaluación utilizando principios que hasta ahora sólo se habían desarrollado para tareas de diagnóstico, evaluación y resolución de problemas. Los estudiantes y profesores dispondrán de un instrumento que, de manera objetiva, permita una auto-corrección continua mediante bases de datos, inferencias y cálculos de certidumbre propias de los principios de la inteligencia artificial. Esta innovación experimental pondrá en práctica una nueva técnica de enseñanza coherente con los objetivos de participación activa del alumnado en su propio aprendizaje. Siendo conscientes del alto grado de relación entre el fracaso académico y las deficiencias en cuanto a habilidades gráficas que poseen los alumnos de carreras técnicas, se ha intentado con la presente investigación desarrollar un sistema experto basado en las teorías probabilísticas más utilizadas para sistemas de inteligencia artificial (teorema de Bayes) al uso, con el fin de diagnosticar las posibles deficiencias en cuanto al desarrollo de dichas habilidades y con ello poder recomendar la intensificación en la realización de los ejercicios más adecuados para corregir dichas deficiencias, al tiempo que el propio alumno puede, vía web, experimentar con la aplicación para aprender de forma autodidacta y autocorregirse.To promote new methods to improve teacher quality, this research offers new evaluation procedures using principles of diagnosis, evaluation and troubleshooting. Students and teachers have a tool to self-correction through databases, inferences and calculations of certainty, peculiar to the principles of artificial intelligence. This innovation aims to develop a new teaching technique with active participation of students in their own learning. We know that there is a relationship between school failure and lack of graphic skills of students. With this research we have tried to develop a probabilistic expert system (Bayes theorem) to diagnose weaknesses and recommend the implementation of the exercises. With this web tool, students can follow the rules for self-learning and self-correcte

Services and sustainable development : a conceptual approach

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.For the vast majority of countries, regardless of developmental status, services make a critical contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), are an important source of employment, and serve as vital inputs into production processes. Services are crucial for the development of economies and provide a significant contribution towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified in the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda (UN 2015). The nature of the relationship between services and the attainment of sustainable and inclusive economic growth is complex and multifaceted. Services can drive sustainable development outcomes through both growth and non-growth channels. The growth channel includes impacts from domestic production and services trade performance as both affect the productivity and efficiency of the domestic economy. In contrast to the relationship between economic growth and services, which has been well documented in numerous studies, less research has been devoted to the non-growth dimensions of services

Strengthening the global system of protected areas post-2020: A perspective from the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas

Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation and have never been more relevant than at the present time when the world is facing both a biodiversity and a climate change crisis. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) has been helping to set global standards and best practice guidelines in protected area planning and management for 60 years. Following this guidance, many countries have made significant progress toward their Aichi Target 11 commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The global community will be coming together at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the CBD to set new biodiversity conservation targets for the next decade, as milestones to 2050 and a vision of “a world living in harmony with nature.” This paper lays out the WCPA perspective on priorities for supporting effective protected and conserved areas for the post-2020 era