Low-income sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) households rely on wood for cooking for the simple reason that it is the lowest cost cooking fuel. Thus, full attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) requires developing clean cooking technologies that are cheaper than wood cooking. This study provides a comparative marginal levelized cost of energy (MLCOE) analysis for wood cooking vs. innovative solar electric cooking technologies. The two key off-grid solar technologies evaluated are: (1) direct-use DC solar (DDS) electricity for cooking applications, and (2) high-cycle-life lithium titanate (LTO) batteries. MLCOE is reported in USD/kWh for energy delivered to cooked food. A low median MLCOE of USD 0.125/kWh is attained using DDS electricity which is output directly by a solar panel with little or no intervening electricity storage and few electricity conversion and control costs. DDS solar panel output has variable voltage and current that is managed by a specialized DDS cooker. LTO battery-regulated electricity has a median MLCOE of USD 0.24/kWh which declines to USD 0.16/kWh with electric pressure cooker use. The distributions of MLCOE for wood-based, DDS-electric, and LTO-electric cooking strongly overlap. The MLCOE cost model suggests specific means for modifying input costs, component lifetime, and system efficiency to improve solar MLCOE further relative to wood MLCOE.

Adoption of higher energy efficiency for electrical appliances by consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is challenged with a number of barriers despite its long term energy savings and economic benefits. Inefficient electrical appliances continue to flood the markets of most SSA countries with just a few of the counties having resolute energy efficiency programs with established energy efficiency standards and labels. This paper examines the barriers to energy efficiency in SSA, with a case study on how Ghana was able to overcome these barriers by using high levels of stakeholder engagement to develop and implement its energy efficiency standards and labels for electrical appliances. Analysis from this study reveals that the Ghana policy development process is consistent with a quadruple helix model of policy and marketplace innovation. The quadruple-helix analytical framework identifies four key sectors of society: government, academia, industry and public/media that drive energy efficiency knowledge and innovations. The resulting barrier removal and institutional transformations enabled by the quadruple-helix dynamics have laid the foundation for a dramatic expansion of Ghanaian energy efficiency policy-making. New energy efficiency policies in Ghana are expected to revise or implement new efficiency standards on a total of 20 product categories by 2022.

Direct DC Solar (DDS) electricity can inexpensively cook food and charge appliances. Insulating the cooking chamber allows the food to cook with a lower-power (less expensive) solar panel over a longer cooking time. We explain how using a chain of diodes instead of a resistive heater extracts more energy from a solar panel over a variety of solar intensities and also acts as a rough, inexpensive voltage regulator to charge batteries and power appliances. We show how a diode heater produces more heat from a solar panel than either a DDS resistive heater or a PWM/battery-connected resistive heater, averaged over a wide variety of solar intensities. The resulting cost of electricity is already cost competitive with biomass cooking in many areas. Benefits include inexpensive access to electricity as well as reductions in indoor air pollution, deforestation, and cost/burden of providing cooking fuel. With continued decrease in the price of solar panels, DDS will become ever more effective for bringing electricity and electrical cooking to the global poor.

In the European Union (EU), mandatory durability ecodesign requirements have recently been set for some products, including lighting products; further development of durability standards is also expected in the future. Durability standards can bring environmental and consumer benefits, but the question remains about what optimal durability is. In this paper, the product lifetime aspect of durability is considered, and optimal lifetimes in relation to least life cycle cost (LCC) for the consumer are analysed. The paper focusses the analysis on a case of LED lamps available in an online market in December 2016 and models optimal lifetimes from an LCC perspective. The statistical error of the regression does not allow for calculation of the optima with precision, but the calculation indicates optimal lifetime is close to 25,000 hours. The influence of smaller discount rates and more intensive use of the product are also modelled, which indicate that durability is desirable in intense-use scenarios in particular. The usefulness of the method is discussed and the findings are compared to previous literature and studies examining durability and increased lifetimes for products, including those using an alternative approach of life cycle assessment (LCA). The initial results of this LCC method indicate that longer lifetimes than those currently required by legal standards in the EU could be appropriate for LED lamps. As such, the advantages and disadvantages of different policy instruments to stimulate increased durability are also discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions for potential future research and further policy development.

Direct DC Solar (DDS) electricity can inexpensively cook food and charge appliances. Insulating the cooking chamber allows the food to cook with a lower-power (less expensive) solar panel over a longer cooking time. We explain how using a chain of diodes instead of a resistive heater extracts more energy from a solar panel over a variety of solar intensities and also acts as a rough, inexpensive voltage regulator to charge batteries and power appliances. We show how a diode heater produces more heat from a solar panel than either a DDS resistive heater or a PWM/battery-connected resistive heater, averaged over a wide variety of solar intensities. The resulting cost of electricity is already cost competitive with biomass cooking in many areas. Benefits include inexpensive access to electricity as well as reductions in indoor air pollution, deforestation, and cost/burden of providing cooking fuel. With continued decrease in the price of solar panels, DDS will become ever more effective for bringing electricity and electrical cooking to the global poor.

Radical energy efficiency improvements are needed to keep global warming within 1.5 °C until the end of the century. Minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) are a widely applied policy instrument to improve the energy efficiency of appliances and reduce CO2 emissions, but they are criticized as redundant if an overarching carbon pricing scheme is in place. In order to better understand how MEPS could play a more effective role in reaching the 1.5 °C target, life cycle costs (LCC) for four home appliances were modelled considering a cost for emitting CO2. First, a significant social cost of carbon was introduced in a LCC optimisation model and it was found that a modest tightening of MEPS is sufficient to account for the climate externality. Second, more stringent MEPS were modelled and it was found that the switching prices needed to incentivize a shift up one or two efficiency classes were far higher than current carbon prices. These results have several implications for climate policy towards the 1.5 °C target. MEPS can easily internalize the climate externality and have the advantage over carbon pricing that policy makers can be certain that consumers actually move to more efficient appliances. While stringent MEPS do not appear to be economically efficient on the short-run, they are likely cost-effective in long-run 1.5 °C-consistent scenarios.

Direct DC Solar (DDS) electricity can inexpensively cook food and charge appliances. Insulating the cooking chamber allows the food to cook with a lower-power (less expensive) solar panel over a longer cooking time. We explain how using a chain of diodes instead of a resistive heater extracts more energy from a solar panel over a variety of solar intensities and also acts as a rough, inexpensive voltage regulator to charge batteries and power appliances. We show how a diode heater produces more heat from a solar panel than either a DDS resistive heater or a PWM/battery-connected resistive heater, averaged over a wide variety of solar intensities. The resulting cost of electricity is already cost competitive with biomass cooking in many areas. Benefits include inexpensive access to electricity as well as reductions in indoor air pollution, deforestation, and cost/burden of providing cooking fuel. With continued decrease in the price of solar panels, DDS will become ever more effective for bringing electricity and electrical cooking to the global poor. Keywords: Direct DC Solar Cooking, DDS, ISEC, Insulated Solar Electric Cooking

PAMS uses country-specific and product-specific data to calculate estimates of impacts of a Minimum Efficiency Performance Standard (MEPS) program. The analysis tool is self-contained in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and requires no links to external data, or special code additions to run. The analysis can be customized to a particular program without additional user input, through the use of the pull-down menus located on the Summary page. In addition, the spreadsheet contains many areas into which user-generated input data can be entered for increased accuracy of projection. The following is a step-by-step guide for using and customizing the tool.

The Policy Analysis Modeling System is a spreadsheet tool developed to provide an estimate of costs and benefits of appliance efficiency standard and labeling programs. PAMS is a self-contained spreadsheet model that provides both a consumer-oriented analysis and a national cost-benefit analysis in the style of the analysis performed for U.S. appliance efficiency standards. The tool allows policy analysts from many countries to produce a first-cut analysis of appliance efficiency program costs and benefits, examine the sensitivities of the analysis with respect to different policy parameters and assumptions, and continually refine the analysis as more data becomes available. The methodology is a bottom-up approach, using technical specifications for particular products in estimating the increased cost to the consumer resulting from implementation of particular energy-saving designs. It is designed to operate for the widest possible variety of countries, and with as little need as possible for detailed input data. For more accurate results, it can be easily customized to use the most reliable country-specific data inputs. In addition to consumer financial impacts, the tool provides national primary energy savings and estimates of carbon emissions mitigation resulting from the program.

Pricing carbon is often considered to be the cornerstone of any climate policy and, at least in economic theory, it is the only policy intervention required to reach an optimal level of mitigation. In practice, various market and behavioural failures, as well as political barriers, necessitate a policy mix that also encompasses policies to induce energy efficiency and stimulate the up-take of renewable energy sources. Minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) are one group of instruments to drive energy efficiency. However, MEPS are viewed very differently by different actors; some see them as complementary to carbon pricing, while others view them as market distortion. Recent studies indicate that MEPS for appliances and vehicles are currently the best performing climate policy instruments. There is a need for more research about how MEPS and carbon pricing policies interact and how they can best be combined for an effective climate policy mix. In this paper, we examine the advantages and potential of using MEPS to drive more ambitious climate policy. We first model the market price of appliances in a UK market and how life cycle costs (LCC) shift when the social cost of carbon (SCC) is factored in. We then examine how the inclusion of the SCC affects the point at which least life cycle costs (LLCC) for an appliance class are reached. We consider carbon prices ranging from the current carbon market price to high-end estimates of SCC, and then estimate the corresponding MEPS in each scenario. Finally, we discuss the implications for mixed policy design when climate change externalities are addressed primarily through MEPS, as well as the merits of such a policy approach. (Less)

Our motivation in this work is to find an adequate probability distribution to fit sales volumes of different appliances. This distribution allows for the translation of sales rank into sales volume. This paper shows that the log-normal distribution and specifically the truncated version are well suited for this purpose. We demonstrate that using sales proxies derived from a calibrated truncated log-normal distribution function can be used to produce realistic estimates of market average product prices, and product attributes. We show that the market averages calculated with the sales proxies derived from the calibrated, truncated log-normal distribution provide better market average estimates than sales proxies estimated with simpler distribution functions.

We perform a retrospective investigation of multi-decade trends in price and life-cycle cost (LCC) for home appliances in periods with and without energy efficiency (EE) standards and labeling polices. In contrast to the classical picture of the impact of efficiency standards, the introduction and updating of appliance standards is not associated with a long-term increase in purchase price; rather, quality-adjusted prices undergo a continued or accelerated long-term decline. In addition, long term trends in appliance LCCs—which include operating costs—consistently show an accelerated long term decline with EE policies. We also show that the incremental price of efficiency improvements has declined faster than the baseline product price for selected products. These observations are inconsistent with a view of EE standards that supposes a perfectly competitive market with static supply costs. These results suggest that EE policies may be associated with other forces at play, such as innovation and learning-by-doing in appliance production and design, that can affect long term trends in quality-adjusted prices and LCCs.

There exists considerable evidence that manufacturing costs and consumer prices of residential appliances have decreased in real terms over the last several decades. This phenomenon is generally attributable to manufacturing efficiency gained with cumulative experience producing a certain good, and is modeled by an empirical experience curve. The technical analyses conducted in support of U.S. energy conservation standards for residential appliances and commercial equipment have, until recently, assumed that manufacturing costs and retail prices remain constant during the projected 30-year analysis period. This assumption does not reflect real market price dynamics. Using price data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we present U.S. experience curves for room air conditioners, clothes dryers, central air conditioners, furnaces, and refrigerators and freezers. These experience curves were incorporated into recent energy conservation standards analyses for these products. Including experience curves increases the national consumer net present value of potential standard levels. In some cases a potential standard level exhibits a net benefit when considering experience, whereas without experience it exhibits a net cost. These results highlight the importance of modeling more representative market prices.

We present the results of a simulation study of the wind energy resources of southeastern Eritrea. In this study, we simulate the three dimensional wind fields during typical, steady conditions of the Southern Red Sea southeast monsoon season. The simulations verify the existence of a low level jet (LLJ) contained within the highly stratified marine layer over the Southern Red Sea. The LLJ is caused by the channeling and the acceleration of marine layer flow as it passes through the strait of Bab el Mandeb on its way from the Indian Ocean to the Eastern Sahara. The LLJ extends from 12.5 deg to 14.5 deg N latitude in the Southern Red Sea and has peak velocities at 300–600 m elevation above the sea. Sea-land breezes advect the high speeds of the LLJ onshore along a 200 km stretch of southeastern Eritrean coastline, producing an excellent wind energy resource that peaks daily at 3 p.m. LST. This resource is currently under development for both grid-connected and decentralized village wind energy applications.