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Abstract Globally, three-quarter of a billion people live without electricity. Besides, hundreds of million use a solar lantern for less than 4 h a day. Most of the access-deprived are in the Global South, predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The United Nations framed the seventh Sustainable Development Goal to improve access. Solar photovoltaic powered mini-grids are increasingly extending better service to deprived regions. However, poor load-factor and expensive storage adversely affect viability. Also, these mini-grids do not support infrequent large loads to avoid further loss of load-factor. Electric cooking is efficient and non-polluting; water treatment facilities can save millions from contaminant and pathogen by providing clean water. Besides, both electric cooking and water treatment are less expensive than alternatives. But mini-grids frequently do not support these. Indeed, the presence of sustained productive loads favourably influences the mini-grid economy. This study investigates the role of critical household loads to deliver similar bearing on the mini-grid economy. Results underscore realisation of desirable impact with household collaboration under a demand-response program. Collaborative consumption can lower initial investment by 62% and reduce the unit energy cost to $0.23. Also, cooperation improves the mini-grid load factor and promotes viability. Additionally, fast deployment needs during and after Covid-19 remains inherently supported while mitigating the pandemic induced financial stress of both consumer and mini-grid operator. This study of 88 nation-states underscores that demand response in a mini-grid can not only improve affordability for all consumers, but it can also bring 186 million people within affordable access.

Abstract Natural gas is an important source of energy in the global economy, hence understanding the drivers of its prices is of significant interest for economic agents. This paper investigates the role of structural shocks for the dynamics of the U.S. natural gas market within the Bayesian Structural Vector Autoregression framework applied by Baumeister and Hamilton (2019a, AER), to the crude oil market. This approach provides clear intuition for the identification strategy and allows us to correctly estimate the short-term price elasticity of natural gas supply and demand. Our results indicate that the former is low, whereas the latter is higher than the average estimate in the literature. We also show that market specific demand shocks explain a dominant fraction of natural gas prices variability, while the contribution of supply, aggregate economic activity and inventory shocks is important only during specific market events such as the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we illustrate how changes in supply in the era of shale gas revolution contributed to the dynamics of natural gas prices.

Abstract China has proposed the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) policy to advance the stable development of renewable energy. The RPS requires each province to achieve a stated minimum share of renewable energy power in the total provincial power generation. However, there is an obvious mismatch between the actual capability of generating renewable power and the assigned responsibility for the share of renewable energy power based on the RPS in some provinces. Therefore, this study aims to optimize the renewable power dispatching strategy across provinces for satisfying the RPS requirements in China and to assess the corresponding pressure for each province. A renewable energy power dispatching model is developed, and an economically feasible strategy for dispatching renewable energy power in Chinese provinces in 2020–2022 was obtained. The results indicate that it is necessary to dispatch 395.2 and 140.4 TWh of hydropower and non-hydropower nationwide, respectively, in 2022 to fulfill the RPS target when the COVID-19 is effectively controlled worldwide. If COVID-19 cannot be effectively controlled, 376.6 and 127.8 TWh of hydropower and non-hydropower must be dispatched nationwide to fill the gap. Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Zhejiang are faced with a relatively high pressure under the RPS target. Finally, a path for each province to achieve its RPS target is proposed.

PurposeThis study examines the extreme quantile connectedness and spillovers between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures and ten Vietnamese stock market sectors. Knowledge of such links is important to both investors and policymakers in understanding the transmission of shocks across markets.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ the extreme quantile connectedness methodology of Ando et al. (2022).FindingsInitial results show that the size of spillovers is higher during bearish markets than bullish markets and under major financial, political, energy and pandemic events. The oil market is a net receiver of spillovers during downward markets and net contributors during upward markets. The banking sector is a net contributor of spillovers, whereas consumer discretionary and consumer staples are net receivers for different quantiles. The role of the remaining sectors as net receivers/contributors is sensitive to the quantiles. Oil has a large spillover effect on the electricity sector for all quantiles. Comparing all crises, oil offers the best hedging effectiveness to the Vietnamese sector during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. Moreover, oil was a cheap hedge asset during oil crises. Finally, oil provides the highest hedging effectiveness for healthcare during the global financial crisis (GFC) and consumer staples during the European debt crisis (EDC), oil crisis and COVID-19.Originality/valueAcknowledging the presence of heterogeneity in the relation between oil and economic sectors under different market conditions, this study is the first to examine the extreme quantile connectedness between oil and Vietnamese sectors.

AbstractBackgroundThe COVID‐19 pandemic has resulted in pronounced changes for college students, including shifts in living situations and engagement in virtual environments. Although college drinking decreased at the onset of the pandemic, a nuanced understanding of pandemic‐related changes in drinking contexts and the risks conferred by each context on alcohol use and related consequences have yet to be assessed.MethodsSecondary data analyses were conducted on screening data from a large parent clinical trial assessing a college student drinking intervention (N = 1669). Participants across six cohorts (from Spring 2020 to Summer 2021) reported on the frequency of drinking in each context (i.e., outside the home, home alone, home with others in‐person, and home with others virtually), typical amount of drinking, and seven alcohol‐related consequence subscales.ResultsDescriptive statistics and negative binomial regressions indicated that the proportion and frequency of drinking at home virtually with others decreased, while drinking outside the home increased from Spring 2020 to Summer 2021. Limited differences were observed in the proportion or frequency of individuals drinking at home alone or at home with others in‐person. Negative binomial and logistic regressions indicated that the frequency of drinking outside the home was most consistently associated with more alcohol‐related consequences (i.e., six of the seven subscales). However, drinking at home was not without risks; drinking home alone was associated with abuse/dependence, personal, social, hangover, and social media consequences; drinking home with others virtually was associated with abuse/dependence and social consequences; drinking home with others in‐person was associated with drunk texting/dialing.ConclusionThe proportion and frequency of drinking in certain contexts changed during the COVID‐19 pandemic, although drinking outside the home represented the highest risk drinking context across the pandemic. Future prevention and intervention efforts may benefit from considering approaches specific to different drinking contexts.

In this study, the overall energy status of Turkey in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic was analyzed. The situation in the energy market and electricity demand in the pandemic period as glob...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe economic contraction and paralyzed industrial activity. Despite a growing body of literature on the impacts of COVID-19 mitigation measures, scant evidence currently exists on the impacts of lockdowns on the economic and industrial activities of developing countries. Our study provides an empirical assessment of lockdown measures using 298,354 data points on daily electricity consumption in 396 sub-industries. To infer causal relationships, we employ difference-in-differences models that compare cities with and without lockdown policies and provide quantitative evidence on whether the long-term gain of lockdowns outweighs the short-term loss. The results show that lockdown policies led to a significant short-term drop in electricity consumption of 15.2% relative to the control group. However, the electricity loss under the no-lockdown scenario is 2.6 times larger than that under the strict lockdown scenario within 4 months of the outbreak. Discrepancies in the impacts among industries are identified, and even within the same industry, lockdowns have heterogeneous effects. The impact of lockdowns on small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries is seriously underestimated, raising concerns about the distributional impact of subsidy measures. This study serves as a crucial reference for the government when facing public health emergencies and shocks to support better policies.