• Energy Research
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Road transport accounts for around 12% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As many high-income countries are moving to decarbonise their road vehicle fleets, Kyrgyzstan – with rapid growth in passenger car ownership – is seeing a significant increase in transport-related GHG emissions and air pollution in urban areas. Whilst a transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is a key part of Kyrgyzstan’s Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement, the potential for successful EV deployment in the region is under-researched. To fill this research gap, this paper presents an assessment of the potential for EV deployment in Kyrgyzstan. Firstly, we present an investigation of the policy and institutional landscape relating to transport and the promotion of EVs in Kyrgyzstan. Secondly, based on research of 50,000 car sales and interviews with 23 key stakeholders in the country, we present analysis of the existing Kyrgyz vehicle fleet. Thirdly, using information ascertained from the interviews and desk-based research, we conduct a Total Cost of Ownership assessment of EVs versus internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) in the Kyrgyz context. We find that under the current conditions, EVs can have a lower total cost of ownership against similar ICEVs in Kyrgyzstan. However, it is evident that this is not typically the case: the analysis in this paper suggests that cost-competitiveness between EVs and ICEVs is more likely for larger and higher-powered vehicles, for which the ICEV version has a higher retail price. Finally, combining analysis of these results and analysis of the current conditions in Kyrgyzstan, trajectories for EV adoption in geographically and economically similar nations, and data from expert stakeholder interviews, we propose a set of policy recommendations to accelerate EV uptake in Kyrgyzstan.

Renewable energy technologies play a crucial role in solving global energy and environmental issues, and the pace of the energy transition directly depends on improving their efficiency. Presently, the development and implementation of renewable energy systems are ensured mainly through state funding, the possibilities of which are limited. The potential of attracting private investments depends directly on their impact on companies’ profitability indicators, and the uncertainty regarding the return on investments is one of the main barriers affecting investors’ decision-making. Based on a vector autoregressive model for analysing the stationary time series, the paper explores the impact of long-term investments and research and development costs in renewable energy technologies on the financial performance of ten of the largest companies operating in this field. The study’s results showed that investments and spending on research and development positively affect such companies’ profitability indicators as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, earnings before interest and tax, net income, and return on investment. The obtained results can be used to substantiate the economic effectiveness of investments in developing and improving renewable energy technologies when forming the companies’ financial policies to support them.

The interaction among the energy unit prices, which are considered as the most effective factor on the realization of economic growth, and the distribution of this interaction throughout the manufacturing process have become popular subjects in research recently. Especially, the scarcity of energy resources and the problems encountered in their supply make it necessary to utilize alternative energy resources. Thus, the realization of production using different energy inputs simultaneously results in an interaction between the factors and the spillover effect. Thus, in the study, alternative vector autoregressive M-GARCH (VAR [-MA] -MGARH) models would be predicted based on the spillover effect between the conditional variance and alternative energy input prices.

Abstract Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are the two countries in Central Asia that have a huge reserve of hydro resources of the region. It is important to recognize the significance of the part played by the micro-hydropower plants (HPP) in the electric power generation in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan from the point of view of sustainable economic development. After all, the construction of micro-HPPs in mountainous areas will reliably ensure the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the field of agriculture and livestock, industry, tourism, improve the social conditions of the population, as well as ensure the production of “green” hydrogen, which will contribute to the development of an environmentally friendly transport system in the regions. Micro HPPs gained recognition as a good alternative to traditional power generation for many developing countries around the world. This study presents a structural model and methodology of choice of a feasible type of micro HPP using the developed algorithm for calculation of hydro turbines’ characteristics based on the hydrological characteristics of small and shallow watercourses located in Central Asian countries, such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Based on this model, the software “Calculation and choosing the type of hydro turbines for micro HPPs” has been developed. Depending on the load, a consumer can choose one of the suggested types of micro-hydroelectric power plants to meet his requirements. When choosing the type of micro-hydroelectric power station, a consumer should also take into account the factor of the seasonality of the water level, the constancy and speed of the water, and the volume of river water, since in some places the water freezes in winter.

To help answer questions about availability, accessibility, sustainability and other dimensions of energy security, the vulnerability approach concentrates the attention of policymakers on the assessment of risks associated with natural, technical, political and economic factors. This understanding, combined with a focus on energy services (e.g. lighting, heating, telecommunications, mobility, etc.) helps to prioritize actions to achieve the goal of energy security. This paper conceptualizes energy security as low vulnerability of vital energy systems and sustained provision of modern energy services. Taking Tajikistan as a case, this paper highlights key vulnerabilities including neglect of environmental conditions, insufficient energy production capacity, unreliable and expensive energy imports, dwindling power infrastructure causing technical and economic losses, inadequate transparency in the power sector, lack of regional cooperation in energy and water resources sharing, and inadequate financial resources to address these challenges. Three major proposals presented by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Government of Tajikistan to achieve energy security in Tajikistan are evaluated. Specifically, they lack a focus on energy services and therefore overlook people's socio-cultural context and appropriate energy needs. This paper highlights energy services as critical to people’s wellbeing and socio-economic development.

Based on a case study in central Kyrgyzstan, this paper examines the links between the environment, rural livelihoods, and labor migration. The low diversity of income-generating activities in rural areas increases vulnerability to climate change impacts, other environmental stresses, and market failures. As a result, additional livelihood strategies such as labor migration and engagement in trade or other business ventures have become essential coping strategies for rural households. Remittances sent by migrants contribute not only to individual rural households but also to rural community development. Remittances help repay loans that have been taken out by households for different purposes, particularly for running or expanding farming and animal husbandry. When remittances are spent to increase livestock herds, the resulting intensive use of nearby pastures often leads to overgrazing and land degradation.

Cloud computing is the de facto platform for deploying resource- and data-intensive real-time applications due to the collaboration of large scale resources operating in cross-administrative domains. For example, real-time systems are generated by smart devices (e.g., sensors in smart homes that monitor surroundings in real-time, security cameras that produce video streams in real-time, cloud gaming, social media streams, etc.). Such low-end devices form a microgrid which has low computational and storage capacity and hence offload data unto the cloud for processing. Cloud computing still lacks mature time-oriented scheduling and resource allocation strategies which thoroughly deliberate stringent QoS. Traditional approaches are sufficient only when applications have real-time and data constraints, and cloud storage resources are located with computational resources where the data are locally available for task execution. Such approaches mainly focus on resource provision and latency, and are prone to missing deadlines during tasks execution due to the urgency of the tasks and limited user budget constraints. The timing and data requirements exacerbate the efficient task scheduling and resource allocation problems. To cope with the aforementioned gaps, we propose a time- and cost-efficient resource allocation strategy for smart systems that periodically offload computational and data-intensive load to the cloud. The proposed strategy minimizes the data files transfer overhead to computing resources by selecting appropriate pairs of computing and storage resources. The celebrated results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in terms of resource selection and tasks processing within time and budget constraints when compared with the other counterparts.