Implementation and delivery of Free Basic Electricity in the face of the restructuring of the electricity distribution industry

Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-67)

Economic and environmental analysis of solar water heater utilisation in Gauteng Province, South Africa

This paper focuses on the energy economics and environmental impacts of solar water heaters (SWH) in the Gauteng Province and compares the results with other technology options for residential water heating with regard to the different income groups. The critical energy situation in South Africa and the highly coal dependent energy generation demonstrates the need to shift to a more sustainable way of living. The residential sector proves to be an optimal starting point to implement new technologies, especially for water heating. The residential hot water demand calculation shows that the annual demand in Gauteng is about 188 million cubic meters. In order to satisfy this demand, different technologies are investigated in this paper, where SWHs lie in focus. Due to the vast income inequality in Gauteng, and also in South Africa, it is obvious that there cannot be one single optimal solution suitable to all households. Therefore, this paper focuses on the differentiation of the residential sector into income groups to show the divergence in warm water demand and the applicability of alternative technologies. In order to analyse appropriate solutions for all income groups, low-cost alternatives are also analysed. The economic analysis shows that although SWHs have higher investment costs than conventional technologies, the payback periods are relatively short (between 3 and 4 years) for high and mid income groups. The payback periods will be even shorter when the planned electricity price tariff increase comes into effect. Furthermore, SWH utilisation has the additional effect of reducing the overall electricity demand up to 70% and greenhouse gas emissions significantly. In addition, SWHs are the most cost-effective water heating technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for mid and high income groups with negative abatement costs. It is concluded that the SWHs are the most suitable option to decrease fossil energy consumption and reduce the household’s expenditure for energy services, especially for mid and high income groups. For lower income groups the utilisation of solar energy can increase the access to energy services and living quality and, therewith, lessen the financial burden to meet their energy needs

Economic and environmental analysis of solar water heater utilisation in Gauteng Province, South Africa

This paper focuses on the energy economics and environmental impacts of solar water heaters (SWH) in the Gauteng Province and compares the results with other technology options for residential water heating with regard to the different income groups. The critical energy situation in South Africa and the highly coal dependent energy generation demonstrates the need to shift to a more sustainable way of living. The residential sector proves to be an optimal starting point to implement new technologies, especially for water heating. The residential hot water demand calculation shows that the annual demand in Gauteng is about 188 million cubic meters. In order to satisfy this demand, different technologies are investigated in this paper, where SWHs lie in focus. Due to the vast income inequality in Gauteng, and also in South Africa, it is obvious that there cannot be one single optimal solution suitable to all households. Therefore, this paper focuses on the differentiation of the residential sector into income groups to show the divergence in warm water demand and the applicability of alternative technologies. In order to analyse appropriate solutions for all income groups, low-cost alternatives are also analysed. The economic analysis shows that although SWHs have higher investment costs than conventional technologies, the payback periods are relatively short (between 3 and 4 years) for high and mid income groups. The payback periods will be even shorter when the planned electricity price tariff increase comes into effect. Furthermore, SWH utilisation has the additional effect of reducing the overall electricity demand up to 70% and greenhouse gas emissions significantly. In addition, SWHs are the most cost-effective water heating technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for mid and high income groups with negative abatement costs.It is concluded that the SWHs are the most suitable option to decrease fossil energy consumption and reduce the household’s expenditure for energy services, especially for mid and high income groups. For lower income groups the utilisation of solar energy can increase the access to energy services and living quality and, therewith, lessen the financial burden to meet their energy needs

Task-Selective Memory Effects for Successfully Implemented Encoding Strategies

Previous behavioral evidence suggests that instructed strategy use benefits associative memory formation in paired associate tasks. Two such effective encoding strategies–visual imagery and sentence generation–facilitate memory through the production of different types of mediators (e.g., mental images and sentences). Neuroimaging evidence suggests that regions of the brain support memory reflecting the mental operations engaged at the time of study. That work, however, has not taken into account self-reported encoding task success (i.e., whether participants successfully generated a mediator). It is unknown, therefore, whether task-selective memory effects specific to each strategy might be found when encoding strategies are successfully implemented. In this experiment, participants studied pairs of abstract nouns under either visual imagery or sentence generation encoding instructions. At the time of study, participants reported their success at generating a mediator. Outside of the scanner, participants further reported the quality of the generated mediator (e.g., images, sentences) for each word pair. We observed task-selective memory effects for visual imagery in the left middle occipital gyrus, the left precuneus, and the lingual gyrus. No such task-selective effects were observed for sentence generation. Intriguingly, activity at the time of study in the left precuneus was modulated by the self-reported quality (vividness) of the generated mental images with greater activity for trials given higher ratings of quality. These data suggest that regions of the brain support memory in accord with the encoding operations engaged at the time of study

Rückverteilung von Einnahmen aus der CO2-Bepreisung sozialverträglich gestalten

Um negative Folgen für einkommensschwächere Haushalte in Folge der CO2-Bepreisung zu vermeiden, sollte die Rückverteilung der Einnahmen aus der CO2-Bepreisung entsprechend den finanziellen Möglichkeiten und der Entscheidungsfähigkeit der Haushalte erfolgen

Policy Brief: Folgen des Kohleausstiegs und der Energiewende für die Haushalte in Deutschland

Der aktuell diskutierte „Kohleausstieg“ sowie das geplante Klimaschutzgesetz verursachen Kosten. Die Bepreisung von Kohlendioxyd (CO2) ist in diesem Zusammenhang als kosteneffizientes Instrument zu beurteilen und daher aus ökonomischer Sicht vorteilhaft. Durch die CO2-Bepreisung entstehen einerseits Kosten für den Systemumbau, andererseits werden staatliche Einnahmen generiert. Werden diese Mehreinnahmen jedoch nicht zur Entlastung der Verbraucher genutzt, so kommt es auf Haushaltsebene zu erheblichen Mehrbelastungen. Um diese Mehrbelastungen zu vermeiden, sind flankierende Ausgleichsmaßnahmen unbedingt notwendig

Integrating Methods and Empirical Findings from Social and Behavioural Sciences into Energy System Models : Motivation and Possible Approaches

The transformation of the energy system is a highly complex process involving many dimensions. Energy system models help to understand the process and to define either target systems or policy measures. Insights derived from the social sciences are not sufficiently represented in energy system models, but address crucial aspects of the transformation process. It is, therefore, necessary to develop approaches to integrate results from social science studies into energy system models. Hence, as a result of an interdisciplinary discourse among energy system modellers, social scientists, psychologists, economists and political scientists, this article explains which aspects should be considered in the models, how the respective results can be collected and which aspects of integration into energy system models are conceivable to provide an overview for other modellers. As a result of the discourse, five facets are examined: Investment behaviour (market acceptance), user behaviour, local acceptance, technology innovation and socio-political acceptance. Finally, an approach is presented that introduces a compound of energy system models (with a focus on the macro and micro-perspective) as well as submodels on technology genesis and socio-political acceptance, which serves to gain a more fundamental knowledge of the transformation process