Public Firm in Mixed Oligopolistic Structure: A Theoretical Exposition

The logic for state monopoly of public utilities arises from increasing returns to scale and the concern that private business in these areas results in monopolistic exploitation of consumers. The state monopoly however is fraught with the danger of production inefficiency. In this backdrop, the market form of mixed oligopoly is contemplated in markets like health, education, electricity, gas, telecommunications etc, where public and private sector coexists. The private firms maximize profit but the public firm maximizes social welfare. Despite this theoretical exposition, it is often observed that public firms fail to make contributions according to their potentiality. The public firm in an industry with rapid change in technology can perform inefficiently due to decision making delay, adherence to social obligation. The policy makers must rise to these occasions then survival of public firms will be smooth. The option of public private partnership also derives affirmative results for the society and the particular industry per se

A stochastic integrated planning of electricity and natural gas networks for Queensland, Australia considering high renewable penetration

This study develops a long-term integrated planning approach to electricity and gas aiming at economically optimizing the 2030's investments of both networks while considering new policies towards future clean energy. A static stochastic cost minimization model is formulated, which takes into account the short-term uncertainties of renewable power, i.e. wind and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) as well as the long-term uncertainties of load growth and gas price. The equivalent networks of both electricity and gas are driven to accurately capture their existing supplies and transmission networks. In addition, the integrated planning model allows determining the location of new power plants and gas supply facilities with their optimized capacities, as well as new transmission lines and pipelines. An extension of the proposed scheme is considered to accommodate higher penetrations of renewable energy and assess their impacts on both systems. The proposed model is applied to the state of Queensland in Australia, which is a prime example of a region actively integrating electricity and gas

The impact of energy subsidies on the power sector in Southeast Asia

Fossil fuel subsidies in developing nations have proven to be one of the most nagging challenges for policymakers. This article reviews the tradeoffs of such subsidies among members of the ASEAN-5 group

Promoting better economics, renewables and CO2 reduction through trade: A case study for the Eastern Africa Power Pool

Cross-border power trade in the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) has been very low for nearly 15 years since its inception in 2005. This analysis uses a least-cost generation and transmission capacity expansion model to assess economic and CO emissions reduction benefits from different levels of integration. These benefits are assessed for several policy scenarios around renewable energy, national energy security and CO emission reduction targets. In addition, we have explored if major drought events may significantly alter the benefits of trade. The World Bank Electricity Planning Model (EPM) is used to represent 11 countries in the EAPP, Eritrea, South Sudan (and SAPP as an external system) for 2020–2030 including all existing, committed and planned generation and interconnectors. Our analysis shows encouraging prospects for EAPP to potentially gain $7.6 billion from a “Shallow” level of integration wherein countries retain their national plans and interconnections are limited to existing and already committed transmission links. A “Tight” integration that requires generation and (new) interconnection plans to be optimized at a regional level, would increase benefits to$18.6 billion. Tight integration would be most efficient in meeting a 30% CO emission reduction target by 2030 retaining $11.8 billion of benefits. This CO target can be met at 3.8 times lower cost of$6.6 billion compared to the $25.7 billion needed to meet the target in the Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario of very low trade. We find that imposing a 20% upper limit on imports would still retain 80% of the benefits that allays a large part of the concerns around national energy security. We have also simulated extreme droughts that may reduce benefits of trade due to 20%–30% lower hydro availability from hydro dominated systems like Ethiopia. This indeed affects the benefits of a Shallow integration although more than 60% of base case benefits are still retained. Higher flexibility of a Tight integration, on the other hand, allows for a benefit retention of 89% or more, by adjusting flow volumes and directions of trade. A Tight integration renders a greater ability to the system to reduce the impact of major droughts and meet policy constraints including CO emission and import restrictions at a lower cost, due to the intrinsic flexibility of a stronger and wider network. Since all these issues are very realistic, the additional investments in major cross-border links and institutional challenges should be addressed to achieve significant benefits over the medium term. Overall, our exploration of the key facets of trade in EAPP suggests an overwhelmingly positive case for trade pointing to a rapid increase in trade volume by an order of magnitude over the next decade

Continuous removal of chromium from tannery wastewater using activated sludge process—Determination of kinetic parameters

32-36The activated sludge has been acclimatized with chromium (VI) ions from 5 mg/L to 20 mg/L. It is observed that the chromium removal percentage, COD removal and mixed liquor suspended solid (MLSS) decrease with the increase in dilution rate. Maximum food to microorganisms ratio (F/M) is found to be 0.19. When initial metal ion concentration increases from 5 mg/L to 20 mg/L, the chromium removal decreases from 95.58% to 63.85% (dilution rate 0.041h-1)

More power, less cost: transitioning up the solar energy ladder from home systems to mini-grids

Providing access to electricity for the roughly 3 billion people who currently have no access or limited access to reliable service is a fundamental social and economic development challenge. A significant part of this population lives far away from the power grid, mostly in rural areas, where mini-grids could go far in meeting this enormous demand

Studies in empowerment: approaches to rural electrification worldwide

According to the World Bank, there are about 1.2 billion people who do not have access to electricity, most of them in rural and remote areas in the developing world. Developed nations faced a similar challenge to improve electricity access at the turn of the last century. Electricity access, especially in rural areas, is therefore a global challenge that has to be addressed by most countries at one point or another. Many developing nations, together with numerous aid agencies and support from developed nations, are working today to solve the technical, institutional, and educational dimensions of this challenge. In this article, the experiences of three broadly different countries?the United States, India, and Zambia?are described, illustrating approaches that have been or are being taken to overcome the electrification challenge