Journal of Resources,Energy and Development

Even though the pivotal role that energy plays in catalyzing economic development has received considerable theoretical backing among researchers, conflicting empirical findings from many developing regions across the globe have generated a raging debate about the validity of this thesis. By employing panel causality and cointegration techniques, this paper wades into this debate by examining the energy consumption’economic growth nexus in 15 countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) using data from 1990 to 2015. Overall the study finds that a bi-directional/feedback causality relationship exists in the SADC region, suggesting that energy consumption and economic growth are complements in SADC’s economic development. Furthermore, energy consumption is found to exert a positive short-run effect on economic growth even though the effect is higher in low-income SADC countries relative to middle-income SADC countries. The study’s findings suggest that SADC countries should strengthen the implementation of energy conservation measures, including promotion of energy-saving bulbs, encouraging the use of solar water heaters in residential areas, and promoting commercial energy-efficient lighting. These measures will help to manage demand and allow power and energy savings realized to be channeled to productive sectors and stimulate economic growth in the SADC region.

The paper assesses the potential impact of the national electric vehicle (EV) subsidy scheme and the cost-effectiveness of the allocation of the subsidy for different vehicular segments in reducing carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The results show that even though the impacts are positive, most of the allocated subsidy is spent on switching the most-efficient mode into electric.

The power sector reforms in India have received major thrust in the reform agenda of the state budgets. Owing to the lack of competition and existence of major challenges, the Government of India made significant institutional and legal changes and the most important legislation in this direction was the Electricity Act 2003. The act aimed to bring a paradigm shift in the sector by encouraging competition. Though the act enforced the shift of the Indian power sector from vertically integrated monopoly to wholesale competition model, inefficiencies and losses still plague the sector. It is expected that introduction of globally practiced retail competition may address the existing challenges. Literature review suggests that formulation of a conceptual lens is necessary in order to provide comprehensive understanding of retail introduction in the Indian scenario.

Therefore, we have developed a conceptual lens by using Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of conceptualization. The formulated conceptual lens suggests a road map that may be referred to by policymakers for introducing retail competition in the Indian power sector.

Energy access in developing countries is a real challenge, although the availability of modern, reliable, and efficient energy services is a capital driver for economic development. In Cote d’Ivoire, the electrification rate was only 38% in 2014, and solid biofuels (charcoal and fuelwood) contributed 63% of the total fuel consumption in 2015. This paper focuses on forecasting energy demand and supply for Cote d’Ivoire in the short term (2015–2030) and identifying possible energy policy paths. ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average), Holt–Winters forecasting, and LEAP (long-range energy alternative planning system) are used in our analysis. The results show that the forecasts for total energy demand have higher values when the LEAP model is used than with the other two. As LEAP includes population growth trends, it is believed to give the best estimates. However, the results for the scenarios considered here clearly show that the requirements of the sustainable energy policy for all will not be met in Cote d’Ivoire by 2030. Policy recommendations are therefore made to allow the energy policy to be streamlined.