Liquidity Constraints and High Electricity Use

It is a well established fact that electricity use increases with income. What is less well known is that - despite the positive correlation between electricity use and income - a significant portion of low-income households consume very large amounts of electricity. In this paper, we make a first step towards better understanding this phenomenon. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that the high electricity use is driven by the fact that low-income households find it difficult to purchase heating oil upfront/in bulk and so use electricity to heat their homes. Using data from the Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey and the Living Cost and Food Survey, we show that an exogenous increase in income leads to an increase (decrease) in the probability that low-income households use oil (electricity) for heating by approximately 40 (30) percentage points. In addition, we provide evidence which is at odds with a set of alternative explanations for our findings

Making Sense of Oil Stamp Saving Schemes

An increasing number of households in Northern Ireland has started to collect oil stamps in recent years - i.e. small pieces of paper which can be purchased at specified outlets, collected on an oil stamps savings card, and used to pay in full or part for one's oil bill. In this paper, we explore why this is. After ruling out high costs associated with more conventional savings vehicles (such as bank accounts) and the notion that oil stamps serve some purpose other than saving for heating oil as possible explanations, we test two main hypotheses: i) oil stamps as 'self-control' mechanism and ii) oil stamps as 'other-control' mechanism. While we find little evidence for the first hypothesis, we do find evidence for the second one. More specifically, we find that collecting oil stamps is strongly correlated with differences in views among household members with regard to how much priority to give to saving for heating oil. To rule out 'salience effects' as an alternative explanation, we test whether oil stamps increase households' savings performance. We find that they do

EIB Working Papers 2019/06 - Promoting energy audits

Energy audits are key to increase investments in energy efficiency This paper assesses the effectiveness of policy interventions in promoting energy audits by relying on evidence from a unique experiment. The findings of the experiment allow us to quantify by how much the probability that firms invest in energy audits increases, as the policy mix changes

Do Firms with Higher Energy Efficiency Have Better Access to Finance?

Improving energy efficiency quickly is key to mitigating climate change and a large part of such improvements has to be implemented in firms. But since most energy efficiency improvements require upfront investments, good access to external finance is important. Theory suggests that information asymmetries may prevent lenders from including energy efficiency into their lending assessment, even though higher energy efficiency makes a firm more cost- competitive and its collateral worth more, especially if stringent climate change mitigation plans are implemented. Empirically, little is known about the impact of energy efficiency on access to external finance. Here we examine for the first time empirically the effect of a firm’s higher energy efficiency on their ability to obtain loans in European Union countries. We exploit a unique firm-level dataset that links a survey from the European Investment Bank on energy efficiency of firms’ building stock and on access to external finance with the ORBIS firm database for European firms. We find that energy efficiency has no effect on the ability of a firm to obtain external financing compared to other indicators on the financial or operational health of the firm. The results reveal an unexploited potential for energy efficiency policy to signal when firms are energy efficient

Méthodes d'acquisition rapide de spectres RMN multidimensionnels. Application à l'étude structurale de protéines.

Depuis sa première observation en 1944 par Felix Bloch et Edward Purcell [1], la Résonance Magnétique Nucléaire (RMN) a toujours fasciné un grand nombre de scientifiques. La beauté de cette technique réside dans le fait qu'elle permet de manipuler facilement et d'une manière contrôlée un système de spins, dont les propriétés sont décrites par la mécanique quantique et statistique, afin d'obtenir des informations précieuses sur la structure et la dynamique de la matière. Grâce au développement d'un très grand nombre d'outils RMN (séquences d'impulsions), la RMN a trouvé de nombreuses applications dans des domaines de recherche aussi divers que la physique, les sciences des matériaux, la chimie, la biologie et la médecine.Un pas crucial dans le développement de la RMN a été l'introduction en 1966 par Weston Anderson et Richard Ernst [2] du concept de l'acquisition d'un signal RMN évoluant dans le temps (FID) après une excitation polychromatique du système de spins, et sa conversion en spectre RMN par transformation de Fourier (FT). La FT-RMN a permis d'augmenter considérablement la sensibilité de la technique. Une deuxième innovation majeure a été la RMN multidimensionnelle (RMN-nD) introduite par Jean Jeener et Richard Ernst au début des années 70 [3]. La RMN-nD anotamment permis d'augmenter la résolution des spectres RMN en étalant les signaux RMN le long de plusieurs dimensions par les différentes fréquences de noyaux formant un réseau de spins couplés. L'introduction de la FT-RMN-nD a aussi ouvert la porte à la conception d'innombrablesséquences d'impulsions permettant de manipuler les spins nucléaires afin de les corréler entre eux et d'éditer leurs propriétés spectroscopiques (fréquences, couplages, vitesses de relaxation, …) dans les différentes dimensions du spectre. Ces deux développements, qui ont été récompensés par le prix Nobel de chimie attribué à Richard Ernst en 1991, sont à la base de la grande majorité des applications RMN, notamment dans le domaine de la biologie structurale qui nous intéresse plus particulièrement ici

Payment Matters? - An Exploratory Study into the Pre-Payment Electricity Metering

In this paper we look at the role of pre-payment (in the context of prepayment metering) for household electricity consumption. Using a matching approach, we find that households paying their electricity up-front tend to consume no less electricity than households paying ex post. This is despite facing a higher tariff and higher transaction costs. In the second part of the paper, we explore to what extent this finding can be linked to an increase in payment flexibility under a pre-payment regime. Using data from the main electricity supplier in Northern Ireland (NIE Energy), we explore how people top-up their pre-payment meters and whether there is a link between people's top-up behaviour and their electricity consumption

EIB Working Paper 2020/08 - EIB Group Survey on Investment and Investment Finance

Providing a technical analysis of the data quality of the EIB Investment Survey (EIBIS), this paper finds that the chosen sampling framework captures the business population of interest well and that there is little evidence of selection bias during fieldwork. This suggests that EIBIS is a reliable data source to study the corporate investment situation in the EU

Self-Disconnection Among Pre-Payment Customers - A Behavioural Analysis

In this paper, we revisit the problem of self-disconnection among prepayment energy customers. Using metering data from 2.3 million electricity pre-payment customers, we study how often households with an electricity pre-payment meter tend to self-disconnect over the course of a year - and why they do so. What we find is that, in any given year, the majority of households (ca. 78%) do not self-disconnect; ca. 12% self-disconnect once; ca. 3% selfdisconnect more often than four times. We also find that most selfdisconnections (ca. 62%) last for less than one day; between 72% and 82% last for less than two days; 12%-18% last for more than 3 days. As for the main driver of self-disconnection, we identify financial constraints. This suggests that it is likely to be difficult/expensive to reduce the total number of self-disconnections. In the last part of the paper, we argue, however, that it may (still) be possible to reduce the negative impact of self-disconnection in a relatively inexpensive way - at least to some extent - by helping households to better smooth their self disconnections over the course of a year

Resolution Enhancement in Multidimensional Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy of Proteins using Spin-State Selection

A new experimental approach is introduced which leads to significant resolution enhancement in multidimensional 13C-13C correlation experiments of microcrystalline systems. Spin-state-selective techniques, adapted for solid-state NMR, are used for removing the J-coupling contribution to the 13C lineshapes. Combination of the spin-state-selective elements and standard ZQ or DQ solid-state NMR mixing sequences allows to perform a spin-state-selective polarization transfer. In addition to the resolution improvement, the new technique enables to distinguish "direct" cross peaks involving covalently bound nuclei from "relayed" cross peaks