Journal Article
Producing Biofuels in Low-Income Countries
This paper jointly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and...
Working Paper
Producing Biofuels in Low-Income Countries
This paper evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and household...
Working Paper
The Role of Issue Linkage in Managing the Mekong
The Mekong River is the major water source in Southeast Asia and shared by six countries. There is a rush to acquire sources of alternative energy and other benefits to meet the growing demand for water and energy, while China and Myanmar have...
Working Paper
Optimized Reservoir Operation Model of Regional Wind and Hydro Power Integration
The present study develops a reliability assessment method of wind resource using optimum reservoir target power operations that maximizes the firm generation of integrated wind and hydro power. A combined water resources model for a system of...
Working Paper
An Integrated Approach to Modelling Energy Policy in South Africa
We link a bottom-up energy sector model to a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of South Africa in order to examine two of the country’s main energy policy considerations: (i) the introduction of a carbon tax and (ii)...
Working Paper
Modeling Fuel Choice Among Households in Northern Cameroon
The present study aims to explore economic and socio-demographic factors that influence the household’s probability to switch from firewood to clean fuels in northern Cameroon. The paper employs an ordered probit model to construct cooking patterns...
Working Paper
Planning for Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power in South Africa
South Africa hopes to expand wind and solar power. Success depends on how and where to deploy the technologies. This study develops a 10-year database of expected power generation for these technologies across South Africa. A power system model...
Working Paper
Renewable energy in the Brazilian Amazon
Understanding the political economic drivers of energy planning in the Brazilian Amazon is critical since the forest is increasingly vulnerable to destruction and related, increased poverty. This research investigates how political economy affects...
Journal Article
Are biofuels good for African development? An analytical framework with evidence from Mozambique and Tanzania
Many low-income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels will both reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Conversely, skeptics view biofuels as a threat to...
Working Paper
Biofuels technology
This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and provides foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, reduces both the costs of biofuels...
Working Paper
Foreign Aid, Green Cities and Buildings
This paper attempts, first, to assess foreign aid effectiveness in fostering green city procedures in developing countries. For this purpose, we rely on the following aid effectiveness criteria: national ownership; harmonization; alignment and mutual...
Report
What Do We Know About Aid as We Approach 2015?
The ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid—programme produced 240 original studies. Some 300 researchers from 60 countries came together and provided evidence on what does and could work in development, and what can be transferred and scaled...
Working Paper
Energy futures modelling for African countries
This study develops a scenario-based model to assess the current and future trends in energy demand in Africa and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Future energy demand is forecast on the basis of socio-economic variables such as gross domestic...
Working Paper
The Effectiveness of Foreign Aid for Sustainable Energy
Foreign aid and technology transfer are an essential means, especially for the least developed countries, towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals as well as facilitating adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. The deployment of...
Working Paper
Elite Capture or Capture Elites? Lessons from the 'Counter-elite' and 'Co-opt-elite' Approaches in Bangladesh and Ghana
Community-based development has been criticized for its inadequate understanding of power relationships at the local level, which thus leaves room for elite capture. This paper compares and contrasts two case studies, both of which take power...
Working Paper
Wind turbine and photovoltaic generating efficiency in Africa
As the technology of climate-dependent energy sources is improving—both cheaper and more efficient—the energy sources are becoming more accessible for many of the nations in Africa. However, little is known about the underlying climate that would...
Working Paper
Support policies for renewables
This paper frames the transition towards clean energies as a sequential process of instrument choice and instrument change. First, regulators decide how to initiate the transition away from fossil energies. Here, support policies for renewable...
Working Paper
Political economy of Nigerian power sector reform
The Nigerian power sector reform is necessitated by the chronic poor performance of the sector and has as its compass the 2005 Electric Power Sector Reform Act and the Roadmap for Power Sector Reform 2010. Implementing reform has resulted in...
Working Paper
Post-apartheid electricity policy and the emergence of South Africa’s renewable energy sector
This paper situates South Africa’s new renewable energy sector within the context of the country’s electricity system and in turn its unique political economy. I chart major developments in the country’s energy policy and governance since the end of...
Working Paper
The political economy of energy innovation
This paper empirically investigates the effects of environmental policy, institutions, political orientation, and lobbying on energy innovation and finds that they significantly affect the incentives to innovate and create cleaner energy efficient...
Working Paper
Varieties of clean energy transitions in Europe
The paper introduces a novel framework for classifying different types of national political economies. It applies the outlined framework to analyse in an historical perspective the development of one mature renewable energy sector (onshore wind) and...
Working Paper
The social shaping of nuclear energy technology in South Africa
This paper analyses the question why the South African government intends to procure nuclear energy technology, despite affordable and accessible fossil and renewable energy alternatives. We analyse the social shaping of nuclear energy technology...
Working Paper
The political economy of clean energy transitions at sub-national level
This paper examines the political economy aspects, particularly the influence of the Clean Development Mechanism, in clean energy and climate change policies in the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The different mechanisms for...
Working Paper
Governing clean energy transitions in China and India
China and India will have to radically transform their electric power systems in order to decouple economic growth from unsustainable resource consumption. While the majority of transition literature has focused on the diverse socio-technical factors...
Working Paper
Implementing EU renewable energy policy at the subnational level
The European Union (EU) has set targets for gradually reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 2050. One of the instruments involved is the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, which specifies a 20 per cent renewable energy target for the EU by 2020...
Working Paper
The effects of climate risk on hydropower P3 contract value
Large hydropower dams are at the centre of a debate weighing the value and costs of renewable energy against the risks of climate change. The debate is especially relevant on the African continent, which offers vast hydropower potential, but which is...
Working Paper
An inquiry into the political economy of the global clean energy transition policies and Nigeria’s federal and state governments’ fiscal policies
In order to implement clean energy transition programmes, the national and sub-national governments in Nigeria will incur some cost. In the same way, failure to implement the policies will come with some costs. This paper therefore considers the...
Working Paper
Towards a political economy framework for wind power
We propose a general taxonomy of the political economy challenges to wind power development and integration, highlighting the implications in terms of actors, interests, and risks. Applying this framework to three functions in China’s electricity...