Customer Concerns about Uncertainty and Willingness to Pay in Leasing Solar Power Systems

Although solar power systems are considered as one of the most promising renewable energy sources, some uncertain factors as well as the high cost could be barriers which create customer resistance. Leasing instead of purchase, as one type of product service system, could be an option to reduce consumer concern on such issues. This study focuses on consumer concerns about uncertainty and willingness to pay for leasing solar power systems. Conjoint analysis method is used to find part worth utilities and estimate gaps of willingness to pay between attribute levels, including various leasing time lengths. The results show the part worth utilities an d relative importance of four major attributes, including leasing time. Among concerns about uncertainties, government subsidy, electricity price, reliability, and rise of new generation solar power systems were found to be significantly related to the additional willingness-to-pay for a shorter leasing time. Cluster analysis is used to identify two groups standing for high and low concerns about uncertainty. People with more concerns tend to pay more for a shorter lease time

Thin radiating shock layer about a blunt body

Boundary layer flow in thin shock layer about axisymmetric blunt bodies studied by Blasius type series expansion techniqu

Magnetically-induced reconstructions of the ground state in a few-electron Si quantum dot

We report unexpected fluctuations in the positions of Coulomb blockade peaks at high magnetic fields in a small Si quantum dot. The fluctuations have a distinctive saw-tooth pattern: as a function of magnetic field, linear shifts of peak positions are compensated by abrupt jumps in the opposite direction. The linear shifts have large slopes, suggesting formation of the ground state with a non-zero angular momentum. The value of the momentum is found to be well defined, despite the absence of the rotational symmetry in the dot.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted to PR

Double-dot charge transport in Si single electron/hole transistors

We studied transport through ultra-small Si quantum dot transistors fabricated from silicon-on-insulator wafers. At high temperatures, 4K<T<100K, the devices show single-electron or single-hole transport through the lithographically defined dot. At T<4K, current through the devices is characterized by multidot transport. From the analysis of the transport in samples with double-dot characteristics, we conclude that extra dots are formed inside the thermally grown gate oxide which surrounds the lithographically defined dot.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Appl. Phys. Let

Fluctuations of Entropy Production in Partially Masked Electric Circuits: Theoretical Analysis

In this work we perform theoretical analysis about a coupled RC circuit with constant driven currents. Starting from stochastic differential equations, where voltages are subject to thermal noises, we derive time-correlation functions, steady-state distributions and transition probabilities of the system. The validity of the fluctuation theorem (FT) is examined for scenarios with complete and incomplete descriptions.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur