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In line with the priorities of the Qatar national vision (QNV) 2030 and its principal pillars, we examine in this paper the energy use – economic growth nexus for Qatar during the period 1970–2014. Using recent development in both unit roots and ARDL bounds testing approach with structural breaks, we found strong evidence for the growth hypothesis. This result indicates that the Qatari policymakers should recognize that energy conservation policies will have adverse effects on economic growth, and therefore alternative means must be undertaken to preserve the environment. This paper presents and discusses a detailed economic, energy and environmental policies that can help Qatari policymakers in achieving the objective of balance between economic growth and environment quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to investigate the finance-growth-energy nexus validity in Pakistan by taking large range of relevant variables and developing indexes. Focus of the paper is to evaluate the long run relationship between financial development, economic development and energy consumption. After extracting the indices, Granger's Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and correlation is used to explain short run deviation in the nexus. In order to capture co-integration, Eagle Granger approach is applied, lastly Hurst exponent are used to estimate annual rescaled range statistics to explain deviation during period of analysis. Granger causality has been empirically tested in a robust way incorporating large range of relevant variables on overall nexus of finance-growth-energy that has been hardly tested in such depth. Index formation through econometric analysis is novel part of this study, which revealed that in short run Financial Development Index (FDI), and energy price have significant relationship with energy consumption. However, in long run analysis has endorsed the concept of granger casualty, especially on feedback hypothesis. Study has practical and theoretical contribution to the literature that could be highly beneficial to policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important energy base of China, Xinjiang is the key part of the “Silk Road” economic belt development strategy and is in an superior position. This paper analyzes the problems exist in the sustainable energy industry based on the distribution status of sustainable resources of Xinjiang. The evaluation index system of the application level of Renewable Energy Systems (RESs) is discussed using the wind farm as an example. Besides it investigates the advantages and disadvantages of the development process of each node in the “Silk Road” economic belt areas according to the current situation of the resources, economic and social development. Suggestions for the development of each area are proposed in the end. This paper will contribute to the sustainable development of renewable energy industry and economy in Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate long-run relationship between economic growth and disaggregated energy consumption in Malaysia. Toda-Yamamoto (T-Y), the modified Granger causality test, along with annual disaggregated energy and real GDP growth data from 1971 to 2014 was used in the investigation process. This paper presents several outcomes; firstly, this paper argues that the Malaysian economy is energy dependent and sensitive to energy supply shocks. Secondly, the usage of energy inputs in Malaysian economy is found to be consumed inefficiently meaning that usage of higher energy resources does not contribute the economic growth significantly, rather causes environmental pollution badly. Thirdly, the finding indicates that economic growth and environmental pollution through spreading carbon emissions are responsive to each other. In this circumstance, the Malaysian economy has to find a way to consume the energy inputs efficiently so that economic growth is improved, while negative externality in the environment is reduced. Therefore, the study presents significant policy implications in order to improve the energy efficiency and reduce environmental pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade several scientific papers have dealt with the damages fossil fuels did to our environment. Carbon dioxide has been blamed the chief culprit since it is produced by the automobile fleet that uses diesel or gasoline as a fuel. As a result, several countries are implementing public policies aimed at the replacement of fossil fuels by renewable ones, such as biodiesel. Brazil has become one of them, since the biodiesel production has increased from 736 m 3 to 3,419,838 m 3 in less than ten years. Therefore, this paper intends to briefly review the literature on the history, evolution, and the environmental aspects of biodiesel in Brazil in order to show its positive economic impact on the Brazilian economy, in addition to showing how important this biofuel is to the environment by providing an overview of its advantages when compared to fossil diesel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-led local development and community-driven development mechanisms are recent development phenomenon's adopted by many developing and developed countries, aimed at improving proactive community participation and quality of life along with social wellbeing of local community. The paper is about the role and severity of different barriers that prevent empowerment and community participation in the development of community led development in Pakistan. This paper initially illustrates the concept of empowerment and itsimportance, and then describes the findings of the project's assessment ofbarriers to empowerment among Citizen Community Boards in Pakistan. Audio-taped, structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with six leaders of Citizen Community Boards, who initiated and implemented the community driven projects. Discussion with respondents wasabout mechanisms of community participation;political and elite control; problems encountered at community level due to elite control; and other issues of capacity building and access to information. Interview results revealed that political interference and elite control hinder community participation at local level. Moreover, it is an obstacle that impedes community participation in local community-led development activities. Building capacity at local level is an important ingredient for sustainable development, as it not only provides local stakeholders with an opportunity to participate in decision-making, but also enables “community ownership”, a key component of empowerment. The findings of this study contribute towards greater understanding of developmental issues at local level and will help policymakers to focus on highlighted issues and problems faced by community-led development organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the causal relationship between energy demand and economic growth in Bangladesh using annual time series data from 1980 to 2011 from World Development Indicator (WDI), Database of the World Bank. Since the results of causal direction are sensitive to the models being employed, the paper uses Maximum Entropy Bootstrap (meboot) due to its superiority to overcome small sample bias and limitation of asymptotic distribution theory. To avoid the omitted variables bias, the paper uses multivariate framework in production function specification. The paper finds that a unidirectional causality runs from economic growth to energy demand which indicates that conservative policy might not harm the Bangladesh economy but since economic progress leads higher energy consumption, demand side management of energy and exploring renewable energy sources are must. The implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy management problems associated with rapid institutional, political, technical, ecological, social and economic development have been of critical concern to both national and local governments worldwide for many decades; thus, addressing such issues is a global priority. The main of objective of this study is to provide a review on the application and use of decision making approaches in regard to energy management problems. This paper selected and reviewed 196 published papers, from 1995 to 2015 in 72 important journals related to energy management, which chosen from the “Web of Science” database and in this regard, the systematic and meta-analysis method which called “PRISMA” has been proposed. All published papers were categorized into 13 different fields: environmental impact assessment, waste management, sustainability assessment, renewable energy, energy sustainability, land management, green management topics, water resources management, climate change, strategic environmental assessment, construction and environmental management and other energy management areas. Furthermore, papers were categorized based on the authors, publication year, nationality of authors, region, technique and application, number of criteria, research purpose, gap and contribution, solution and modeling, results and findings. Hybrid MCDM and fuzzy MCDM in the integrated methods were ranked as the first methods in use. The Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review was the important journal in this paper, with 32 published papers. Finally, environmental impact assessment was ranked as the first area that applied decision making approaches. Results of this study acknowledge that decision making approaches can help decision makers and stakeholders in solving some problems under uncertainties situations in environmental decision making and these approaches have seen increasing interest among previous researchers to use these approaches in various steps of environmental decision making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper empirically examines the cointegrating relationship between carbon emissions, energy consumption, trade openness and financial development in Pakistan using ARDL bounds test for cointegration procedure. Annual time series data is used for the period 1971–2011. The results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between carbon emission and energy consumption with a maximum threshold value of energy consumption per capita 640 kg of oil equivalent. Currently, the economy is operating below this level and therefore it is expected that carbon emission will continue to rise gradually over some time until the threshold level is reached. The lower than threshold level of energy consumption implies that scale and composition effects dominate the technology effect in terms of energy use. Further, the long-run results indicate that one percent increase in trade openness and financial development will increase carbon emission by 0.247% and 0.165%, respectively. The short-run elasticities are 0.122% and 0.087% for trade openness and financial development, respectively. The Granger causality results indicate a unidirectional causality from energy consumption, trade openness and financial development to carbon emission; and a bi-directional causality between energy consumption and financial development. In line with the results and given the growing focus on climate change effects in Pakistan, the paper discusses some policy issues for consideration and highlights the need to interpret elasticities with caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency is recognised as a key strategy to tackle three energy-related challenges – climate change, energy security and economic development – at the least cost to the society. In the recent years of the economic downturn, it gained even more relevance in the developed countries as there is more than ever the need to decouple economic recovery and growth from energy consumption. However, despite this formal recognition, energy efficiency remains the least understood and the most neglected feature of overall energy policy. Despite the substantial efforts made to develop sound energy efficiency policies, the desired effects in terms of achieved energy savings are lacking. The phenomenon is known as energy efficiency gap and its persistence was the main driver of this research. The aim of the research was to examine the causes and propose solutions for bridging the gap. Therefore, ideal policy making cycle is defined connecting design, implementation and multiple criteria evaluation of policy instruments’ impacts in closed, repetitive loop. Concept of energy efficiency market was introduced as a basis for policy making, enabling better understanding of the overall environment where policy needs to be implemented. Paper deals with the concept of energy efficiency market. It discusses the fundamental aim of energy efficiency policy – to achieve market transformation towards more efficient products and services. It presents market barriers that call for policy interventions, but upgrades the list of usually addressed barriers with behavioural and societal aspects of energy efficiency related decisions. Established methodology for energy efficiency market assessment includes upgraded model of barriers to energy efficiency. Focus of this paper is how to establish a model of energy efficiency market and to upgrade exisitng model of barriers to energy efficiencies to describe the reality better as to be a basis for policy instruments design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey’s rapid economic growth followed by increasing gap between domestic energy production and consumption signifies the large-scale integration of low-carbon and renewable resources into energy system. Turkey’s energy demand is increasing and supplying fossil energies such as oil and gas is becoming more challenging due to the lack of domestic hydrocarbon resources. The country is facing two main issues; first, maintaining energy balance and second, handling environmental issues. Nevertheless, Turkey has substantial renewable and low-carbon energy resources with co-benefits for the country’s fast growing economy and environmental sustainability. This paper aims to present a comprehensive update on Turkey’s renewable and low-carbon energy sector. It reviews not only the current status of the technology, policy and economy, but also provides an insight into the social aspects as well. From a policy point of view, the paper critically discusses Turkey’s energy strategy and perspectives and from the social point of view, the paper argues that there is a research gap in recent literature regarding public awareness and social acceptance of low-carbon energy technologies. Also, the future challenges for promoting low-carbon society in Turkey are discussed in terms of sustainable development and socio-environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contingent valuation is widely used due to its flexibility in valuing a wide variety of non-market goods. Although this method has important benefits, its validity and reliability are often criticised. This paper reviews the literature on the use of contingent valuation for measuring willingness to pay (WTP) for electricity generated from renewable energy sources (green electricity). A literature review, conducted on a sample of 57 peer-reviewed studies, shows that the vast majority of contingent evaluation studies stems from developed economies. Furthermore, most frequently used WTP elicitation techniques are open-ended and dichotomous choice approaches, which tend to produce varying levels of WTP. Studies dealing with the antecedents of WTP are predominantly inspired by the theory of reasoned action or by its extension, the theory of planned behaviour. This paper identifies six common errors in contingent valuation methods and discusses a number of remedies to deal with these errors in WTP research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the causal relationship between economic growth and aggregated carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission; as well as economic growth and disaggregated CO 2 emission from burning fossil fuel – coal, oil and natural gas. In addition, the analysis extends the potential impact on economic growth if countries substitute CO 2 emission from dirty energy (coal) by emission from relatively cleaner energy (oil and natural gas). The study carries out a panel analysis of 30 countries during 1960–2010. Panel unit root tests, cointegration techniques and causality tests are used to investigate these relationships using panel VAR in first differences framework. The result indicates that there are ‘feedback’ relationships in all cases except a ‘unidirectional’ causality running from economic growth to coal induced CO 2 emission. Utilizing Wald test with linear restriction the result also finds that countries will be environmentally benefited, if they substitute emission from coal by that of oil and natural gas, that is, if they substitute coal consumption by oil and natural gas consumption. Depending on the findings, the paper suggests some essential policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the causality between energy consumption and economic growth in the countries which are members of the Group of Seven (G7), during the period 1970–2012, by following the bootstrap panel Granger causality approach. The main aim of the paper is to identify the right policies to deal with the interaction between energy consumption and economic growth. The findings show a bi-directional causality between energy consumption and GDP in Canada, Japan and United States. GDP causes energy consumption in France and Germany, while no causality is found for the rest of the sample (i.e. Italy and United Kingdom). These outcomes are very sensitive to the cross-sectional dependences between countries. Therefore, their environmental and growth policies should be widely reconsidered when the level of interdependence dramatically decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world’s rapid economic growth has contributed to the ever increasing demand for energy which results in the increase of fossil fuels usage. On the other hand, renewable energies, which are considered environmentally friendly, cannot replace the fossil fuels in the short term. For this, CO 2 capture and storage (CCS) technologies could work as transitional technology. To ensure a meaningful underground storage, well integrity is potentially the greatest challenge. On one hand, the injected CO 2 may cause severe corrosion to metallic tubulars and cement in the wellbore. Identification, quantification and mitigation of this corrosion are the key to achieve satisfactory well conditions. On the other hand, the mechanical integrity loss due to cyclic and thermal loading in the well life will also occur, so to investigate and evaluate well integrity is of paramount importance to ensure a safe operation and storage. This paper presents a definition of well integrity in the scope of CSEGR as well as the mechanisms of well integrity loss. Overview on corrosion issues of metallic and cement corrosion along with the remedial measures is discussed. Through a thorough literature review, well integrity criteria for new and old wells are introduced to provide a guidance for material selection for the usage in CSEGR. Moreover, in order to evaluate the integrity of operational and abandoned wells, this paper provides a review on the existing monitoring methods, as well as risk based methods such as FEPs analysis, Performance and Risk Management, CO 2 -PENS, and put forward a new concept of well integrity evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to investigate the possible economic impacts of the trade liberalization on the environmental quality in Tunisia and Morocco. Specifically, the paper inspects whether or not liberalization of the trade sector has harmed the quality of the environment in both countries. To this end, we conduct various econometric models: a VECM and cointegration techniques for single country case study and a Panel VECM and Panel cointegration when using data of both countries as a group. We also include a dummy variable in each model to see the real impact of trade liberalization for both countries. In the empirical section, we found bidirectional causality between FDI and CO2. This implies that the nature of FDI inflows to Morocco and Tunisia are not clean FDI. These results show that trade liberalization has a negative impact on the environment. The paper concludes that although trade liberalization boosted the economies of both countries by creating new employment opportunities, liberalization has harmed the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has a coal addiction that has worsened over time. Its share of the world׳s total final coal consumption more than doubled over the past decade. This fast growth of coal consumption presents serious challenges to the country׳s carbon emission. In 2011, burning coal contributed 72% of China׳s CO 2 emission and 19% of global CO 2 . A better understanding of the trajectory and drivers of Chinese coal usage will help catalyse Chinese efforts to kick its heavy addiction to coal. We analyze China׳s coal consumption during 1955–2011 using time-series data energy consumption, population, gross domestic product, and industrial production. Based on the change of its total coal consumption and coal consumption intensity, China׳s coal use for 1955–2011 is divided into six phases. Next, this paper quantifys the driving forces in each phase and drivers of coal consumption intensity, using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) technique. The result shows there is a strong positive correlation between economic growth and coal consumption, the coal intensity and economic output of second industry is the leading contributor to change of coal consumption intensity. Three policy recommendations are offered for China kicking its coal habit. This paper argues that improving coal consumption efficiency is the more optimum policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity has become a vital source of energy for social and economic development in modern era. Likewise, the issues of its planning and management have grown complex. To address complexity in decision making, researchers have chosen system dynamics (SD) modelling and simulation technique. A state-of-art of such studies published during the period 2000–2013 is presented in this paper. The contribution of this review lies in categorizing the literature based on the important and contemporary researched areas. These research areas include models developed for policy assessment, generation capacity expansion, financial instruments, demand side management, mixing methods, and finally micro-worlds. Review shows that policy assessment and generation capacity expansion are the two most modelled topics. Financial instruments models evaluate different mechanism to support renewable technologies whereas mixing-methods channelize descriptive approach of SD into evaluating a single objective. Demand side management and micro-worlds are the least focused categories in SD. This paper also discusses the individual models in each category highlighting their construct, outcomes and any deficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological compensation could coordinate the development of energy, the economy, and the environment by internalizing environmental externalities and adjusting for the relationships with stakeholders׳ benefits. Thus, because hydropower is a clean and renewable form of energy, it is urgent that an ecological compensation mechanism be established for hydropower to promote its sustainable development. In this context, this paper has reviewed previous compensation research to explore the particular role that ecological compensation has had in the sustainable development of hydropower. The paper discusses and perfects the ecological compensation mechanism establishment in hydropower development, discussing its connotation, stakeholders, modes, and development of standards. We found that the current ecological compensation mechanism in hydropower development was not complete; the accuracy, applicability and reasonability of each mode of ecological compensation in hydropower development required additional study. Based on these findings, in this review paper, a complete ecological compensation mechanism framework was constructed to avoid the partial compensation on large hydropower projects. With this new compensation mechanism framework, the displaced people, inundated habitats, and regulated rivers were identified as the recipients, whereas the beneficiaries from the hydropower development were identified as the payers. The findings also indicated that the market-led and government-led compensation should be integrated when designing natural habitat restoration, resettlement compensation, and payment for ecosystem services (PES) in hydropower development. Additionally, a cascade ecological compensation development mode was proposed for hydropower development according to the practical situation in China to illustrate the gradual perfection of the ecological compensation mechanism establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes 3700 years of biogas manufacture with more details of last 120 years. Due to V. Omelianskij׳s researches 120 years ago, Ukrainians achieved a share in biogas manufacture in the overall biogas development. Poland started to take part in biogas development 96 years ago by finishing biogas plant in Posen 1928. History and current status of biogas plants achievements are collected and analyzed. Faults and achievements of the two countries are exactly described in the background of global history to draw conclusion for future that helps not to repeat the old errors. The development of green economy based on biogas is discussed. The paper brings back ideas that were previously extinguished due to low technological level and those could be used more successfully nowadays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries, including Nigeria, aim to achieve industrialisation and sustainable development. However, there are few empirical studies that examined the impact of industrialisation-led economic transformation on carbon emissions in developing countries. This is the focus of this study. The paper investigates the impact of industrial value-added on CO 2 emissions in Nigeria using the Kaya Identity framework and Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Johansen׳s cointegration technique and vector error correction model (VECM). The data spans from 1980 to 2011. The result of the ADF test indicates that continual long term policies that exert permanent shocks on the variables are required to achieve economic development, industrialisation and CO 2 reduction. The result of the analysis shows that industrial value-added has an inverse and significant relationship with CO 2 emissions, which suggests that there is no evidence that industrialisation increases carbon emissions in Nigeria. GDP per capita and population has positive and significant impacts on CO 2 emission. Energy intensity and carbon intensity has positive but very weak significant impact (at 10% level) on CO 2 emission. The paper recommends that policy makers in Nigeria should pursue pragmatic industrialisation policies coupled with modest decarbonisation and energy-efficiency measures in order to ensure long term industrial, economic and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to electricity is widely recognized as an important factor for economic and social development. Low rates of access, particularly in remote rural areas in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, have led developing nations and international organizations to set ambitious goals to expand the reach of electricity. Decentralized solutions such as microgrids have been proposed as cost effective solutions to reaching communities located far from central grid infrastructure. Lack of capital from public and donor sources has severely impeded achieving access goals, leading to calls for greater private sector participation in electrification activities. However, due to the high level of risk associated with decentralized electrification projects in low-income areas, marginal expected returns on investment, and a lack of clear and effective public policy, the private sector has not shown significant interest in participating in such projects. The purpose of this paper is to review barriers to private sector participation in decentralized electrification projects and to identify solutions that have been implemented and proposed to overcome these barriers. The barriers discussed include unsecure revenue streams, inability to finance projects, and long-term project risks such as grid encroachment. The range of interventions and business models reviewed include methods to secure reliable demand, subsidy models, risk guarantees, and different revenue models. This paper does not include an analysis of the effectiveness of the different interventions described. Future research should evaluate the relative costs and benefits of these interventions in order to provide robust policy guidance to decision makers in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the rapid population growth and economic development, energy demand is likely to triple over the next decade in Vietnam. Development and implementation of Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EE&C) policies and programs is of great importance for the Government of Vietnam that would help to improve the energy efficiency and contribute in meeting the increasing energy demand of the country in the future. In the recent years, the Government of Vietnam has made substantial progress in improving EE&C by initiating a number of EE&C policies and programs with the two most important ones are the Law on EE&C and the National Targeted Program on Energy Efficiency and Conservation (Phase I: 2006–2010 and Phase II: 2012–2015). However, implementation of these policies and programs has been challenged in reality. This paper mainly aims to provide an overview on the current and future energy context in Vietnam; review the evolution of the Government׳s EE&C policies and programs; and identify the challenges and provide the recommendations for implementing EE&C policies and programs more effectively in the future. This paper suggests that much more efforts relating to improvement on collection, analysis, and management of energy data; capacity building; close coordination among the relevant Ministries and the organizations and agencies during the implementation of EE&C policies and programs; etc. should be put forward in the coming years. In addition, a number of recommendations for promoting EE in three largest energy consumers in Vietnam – namely industrial, residential, and transport sectors has been made in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy security was the major driver for several countries in the world to opt for alternative sources of energy and reduce CO 2 emissions. Being blessed with oil and gas reserves, the situation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries may look different, in a way that investments on Renewable Energy (RE) projects do not create adequate short-term financial returns. However, considering the extreme increase of energy demand locally caused by the industrial and economic development in the region will make seizing the emerging opportunity to develop RE projects a strategic decision. This paper targets regional decision-makers as well as multilateral stakeholders, in an attempt to formulate a set of recommendations on policies to promote RE deployment. It presents the results of the study that covered all GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman). The document summarizes GCC countries’ RE targets and highlights the main projects and measures established to start this transition. Furthermore, this paper provides an updated and comprehensive overview of the RE situation in the GCC countries, and it includes an assessment of the region’s RE potential, current installed RE capacity and project pipeline, institutional and market frameworks. This study analyses the main gaps concerning RE deployment in the region while discussing the financial, fiscal, political, legislative, technological and environmental aspects. Based on that, a set of recommendations is proposed to fill their gaps and help achieving their politically endorsed targets particularly in the electricity sector. The proposed recommendations will help to accelerate the development rate of GCC RE market, support governments’ efforts towards fulfilling future RE targets, and overcome potential barriers. However such policies analysis should be carried out individually for each country of the GCC region taking into consideration the specificity of each market and economic strategies with more adapted measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The insatiable appetite for non-renewable fossil fuels in the past has resulted in a plethora of anthropogenic climate changes and pollution across the globe, causing serious threats to human beings and the environment. To avoid this contention, greater use of wind energy could be the solution for economic growth and sustainable environment, in the long run. This paper discusses the ways in which India has started the growth of wind energy and the country’s potential to expand its contribution to meet ever-increasing energy needs. The paper lucidly presents India’s progress to become the top five wind energy producers in the world. This paper also discusses the major achievements, programs, policy, and incentives for the installation of wind power in India. Opportunities and challenges have been discussed along with the ways to remove barriers to achieve higher growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the coming decades the energy sector will have to face three major transformations concerned with climate change, security of supply and energy poverty. The first two have been extensively analysed, but less attention has been paid to the third, even though it has a great influence on the lives of millions of people. This paper presents an overview on energy poverty, different ways of measuring it and its implications. According to the WHO, indoor pollution causes an estimated 1.3 million deaths per annum in low income countries associated with the use of biomass in inadequate cookstoves. Although energy poverty cannot be delinked from the broader, more complex problem of poverty in general, access to energy infrastructures would avoid its most serious consequences and would help to encourage autonomous development. According to the IEA, the cost of providing universal access to energy by 2030 would require annual investment of $35 billion, i.e. much less than the amount provided annually in subsidies to fossil fuels. Finally, the paper argues that energy and energy poverty need to be incorporated into the design of development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nexus between trade openness and energy demand is hot topic of discussion among academicians and researchers, and numerous studies are available in existing literature while investigating the nexus between trade openness and energy demand. This paper explores the relationship between energy consumption, trade openness and economic growth in case of Thailand. In doing so, we have applied Bayer and Hanck cointegration approach to test whether the long run relationship exists between the variables. Our results confirm the presence of cointegration between the variables. Energy consumption stimulates economic growth. Trade openness adds in economic growth. The causality analysis reveals that energy consumption Granger causes economic growth and in resulting, economic growth Granger causes energy consumption. Trade openness and energy consumption are interdependent i.e. trade openness Granger causes energy consumption and in return, energy consumption Granger causes trade openness. This paper openness up new directions for policy making authorities in Thailand to design a comprehensive energy and trade policies to sustain economic growth for long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, Ghana’s economy has been fuelled by abundant inexpensive hydropower. As a developing economy, Ghana’s electricity demand has long been relatively low, though rising in recent times due to increasing economic growth, urbanization and industrial activities. However, the rapid demand growth, as well as periodic hydrological shocks, leaves the country increasingly reliant on expensive oil and gas-based generation power plants, with a resultant drain on the national economy. The main electricity generation company, the Volta River Authority, is not able to generate enough electricity for all the demand sectors. The electricity supply-demand margins - the difference between peak demand and available supply - of the country fall short of the recommended engineering practice and thus presents a high supply security risk. The country has been experiencing an increase in the frequency of power cuts over the last ten years. It is clear that Ghana will have to expand and diversify its generation capacity in order to improve supply security. This paper provides a review of the assessed potential renewable energy resources, their current exploitation status, and their potential contribution to the electricity supply of the country. The paper also presents the barriers to their utilization and the existing policy and regulatory instruments to overcome those barriers, plus the current and expected future impacts of these instruments. The results show that Ghana has several RES, such as wind, solar PV, mini hydro and modern biomass that can be exploited for electricity production. While their exploitation for electricity generation is currently very low, providing just 0.13% of the country’s generation, the review shows a great potential for RES generation to increase substantially over the next decade, looking at the government commitment and legal frameworks that are being put in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric vehicles (EVs) are reviewed in the context of policy and technical aspects taking into consideration the Lithuanian national picture over the global and European Union developments within this field. The paper presents also the best practices for deployment of EVs including the potential niche markets and the challenges and opportunities within the energy and power systems support. A critical evaluation is also performed on the relevant research and developments in Lithuania. Finally, the paper evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats through a developed SWOT analysis. This review will provide insight to the EVs challenges and opportunities within the Baltic Region. It is expected this will inspire individuals, business and policy makers to allow and incentivise deployment of EVs to enhance efficiency in transport and consequently contribute towards GHG emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapidly increasing energy demand and growing concern about economic and environmental consequences call for renewable/sustainable energy technologies׳ adoption in India. Renewable/sustainable energy technologies have faced a number of constraints that have affected their rate of adoption. In this paper an attempt has been made to identify and rank the major barriers in the adoption of ‘renewable and green’ energy technologies in the Indian context. Twenty-eight barriers have been identified from an extensive literature review. These identified barriers have been categorized into seven dimensions of barriers, i.e. Economical & Financial; Market; Awareness & Information; Technical; Ecological and Geographical; Cultural & Behavioral; and Political & Government Issues. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique has been utilized for ranking of barriers to adopt renewable/sustainable technologies in the Indian context. All pair comparisons in AHP have been made based on experts’ opinions (selected from academia and industry). Sensitivity analysis has also been made to investigate the priority ranking stability of barriers to adopt renewable/sustainable technologies in the Indian context. This paper may help practitioners, regulators and academician focus their future efforts in adoption of ‘renewable/sustainable energy technologies’ in India. Further, this understanding may be helpful in framing the policies and strategies towards adoption of renewable/sustainable energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With radically increased population, rapid economic growth and expansion of urbanization and industrialization, mega-cities of Bangladesh are faces the complexity of municipal solid waste (MSW) management. The purpose of this paper is to review the types of MSW that are currently being used for renewable energy sources. To meet up the power supply for city dwellers and reducing space for new landfills, waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration is playing a vital role for renewable energy production from discarded MSW. Incineration of MSW is complex owing to its low calorific value (~3000 kJ/kg) and high water content (~60%). MSW in Bangladesh contains relatively high proportion of organic matter (74.6%) than paper (9.1%) and plastic (3.5%). Using landfill gas recovery process, generation of electricity from MSW in six mega-cities is ~186,408 kW h/day. Therefore, WTE incineration system contributes greater supply of renewable energy in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China faced the greatest challenge in balancing its economic growth, energy and resource security as well as environmental pollution. The energy-intensive industries, which used to be the major force driving China׳s economic growth, had seriously exhausted the countries׳ natural resources and energy, and at the same time polluted the environment because of the severe surplus of low-efficiency production capacities. As a result, the Chinese government had initiated multiple economic and administrative policies to eliminate these low-efficiency production capacities intended to improve the energy efficiency of energy-intensive industries. These policies are summarized in this paper, along with export tax rebating rate, resource tax, administrative audit and approvals, differential electric power pricing and shutting down the low-efficiency production capacities. The paper also evaluates the effects of these policies by analyzing several key indicators about the energy-intensive industries, including fixed asset investment growth rate, energy-intensity of industrial added-value, waste gas emission-intensity of industrial added-value. The VALDEX methodology is selected to examine the improving trends of energy-efficiency for energy-intensive industries. The analyzing results show that firstly the development of low-efficiency capacities tends to be more sensitive to the policies, so the policies that China had enacted really exert very important effects on improving the energy-efficiency of energy-intensive industries. However, the effects of economic policies seem more faster and obvious than the fiscal policies. Besides, the results also show that polices which are designed to reserve energy may not necessarily exert the same effects on reducing emissions. There is still large room for improving the energy efficiency of energy-intensive industries, substantial improvement still needs to be done for current policies’ system. Some suggestions for future work are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to derive and test the role of energy prices on economic growth. We first developed a two-sector endogenous growth model, based on J Polit Economy 1991; 99:500–521. We modified the model such that consumption goods sector uses energy as an input along with capital. The model allows us to show that the growth rate of energy price has a negative effect on the growth rates of energy use and real GDP. Following this, derived theoretical relationships between energy prices and economic growth and energy consumption were tested empirically using error-correction based panel cointegration tests and panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. We applied this methodology on data of composite energy prices, GDP per capita and energy consumption per capita for sixteen countries for the period between 1978 and 2011. We found significant cointegration between energy prices and real GDP per capita, as well as between energy prices and energy consumption per capita. Moreover, long-run estimates reveal negative and significant effects of composite energy prices on both GDP per capita and energy consumption per capita. We suggest that increasing the share of renewable energy sources in energy consumption would help policy-makers to control permanent long-term increases in consumer energy prices, in turn leading to an increase in economic growth, and hence in welfare. This paper contributes to the literature by highlighting the existence of a previously neglected welfare-improving channel of renewable energy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A hybrid power system is an emerging power generation technique which involves a combination of different energy systems, mostly renewables for optimal output configuration. In modern pursuit for renewable energy (RE) development, optimum conditions for the production and utilization of energy system are considered to be an indispensable feature for economic load dispatch. This is a rationalizing fact taking into consideration the rising price of energy for socio-economic development. Therefore, this paper reviews primary issues regarding the drivers and specific benefits of hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES). Moreover, this paper presents discussions on the various renewable energy sources which can be explored for HRES implementation. Finally, the framework unfolds a vivid review on factors to be considered for designing and implementation of HRES in general including simulation and optimization software packages for making such analyses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The drive towards economic development in Nigeria brings about the pursuit of many competing objectives whose attainments depend on limited resources. Biofuels adoption has been set as an important path, among other options, for pursuing economic growth and development for the country. The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) is currently promoting the production, processing and utilization of biofuels in the transport and energy sectors. The article examines biofuels adoption in Nigeria vis-à-vis the attainment of a balance in the food, fuel, feed and fibre objectives. Crops already profiled as preferred sources of feedstock for the primary biofuels production are also crucial for food, feed and fibre. The resources needed for producing these crops are limited, hence the need for a balance. This paper derived data from secondary sources including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The paper explores some aspects of biofuels sustainability and present recommendations for attaining a balance in the multiple objectives for attaining socioeconomic development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis posits that in the early stages of economic growth environmental degradation and pollution increase. However, as a nation reaches a certain level of income, measured in per capita terms, the trend reverses. The postulated relationship thus produces an inverted U-shaped curve. The topic has drawn much academic interest in the context of developed and emerging nations. The aim of this paper is to investigate the existence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in case of Tunisia using annual time series data for the period of 1971–2010. The ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration is applied to test long run relationship in the presence of structural breaks and vector error correction model (VECM) to detect the direction of causality among the variables. The robustness of causality analysis has been tested by applying the innovative accounting approach (IAA). The findings of this paper confirmed long run relationship between economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness and CO2 emissions. The results also indicated the existence of EKC confirmed by the VECM and IAA approaches. The study has significant contribution for policy implications to curtail energy pollutants by implementing environment friendly regulations to sustain economic development in Tunisia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Energy is an important input for national socio-economic development. The current trends of energy supply and demand are not sustainable because of the expected huge gap between demand and supply in the future. The fossil fuels resources are limited and use of these fuels has a negative impact in the environment. Holding energy at a secure level and global climate at a safe level require integration of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in the energy supply-mix. Development of RETs in a country depends on its renewable energy readiness (RE-Readiness) that indicates the gaps and strengths of their development. In light of the various initiatives proposed to turn North Africa into a renewable energy producer and extend its electricity supply to its neighboring European counties, it demands to assess the RE-Readiness. The main object of this paper is to develop and disseminate an assessment framework to find North African countries RE-Readiness for deployment of RETs. This framework is adopted in which the paper applies a consistent methodology across all the North African countries׳ to assess the present state of infrastructure, institutions and human capital factors to adopt and deploy RETs. Each of the factors is assigned a weight and a score between 1 and 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest score. From this developed assessment framework, it is found Morocco received the highest RE-Readiness score means that the country is more ready to invest in RETs than the other countries in North Africa. This assessment identifies the gaps and strengths for the deployment of RETs in these countries and serves as a first step towards proposing renewable energy diffusion strategies that will contribute to their environmental, social and economic development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present paper examines the mitigating effect of social capital on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for CO2 emissions using a panel data of 69 developed and developing countries. Adopting generalised method of moments (GMM) estimators, the paper finds evidence substantiating the presence of EKC. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the pollution costs of economic development tend to be lower in countries with higher social capital reservoir. Surprisingly, there is also evidence to indicate that the income threshold point beyond which CO2 emissions decline is higher in countries with higher social capital. These results are robust to addition of alternative controlled variables in the EKC specification. Thus, in addition to policy focus on investments in environmentally friendly technology and on the use of renewable energy, investments in social capital can also mitigate the pollution effects of economic progress. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The rapid depletion of fossil fuel reserves and environmental concerns with their combustion necessitate looking for alternative sources for long term sustainability of the world. These concerns also appear serious in developing countries who are striving for rapid economic growth. The net biomass growing potential on the global land surface is 10 times more than the global food, feed, fiber, and energy demands. This study investigates whether the developing countries have sufficient land resource to meet the projected energy demand towards 2035 by planting energy crops on surplus agricultural land after food and feed production. The annual yields of four commonly grown energy crops specifically jatropha, switchgrass, miscanthus, and willow have been used to make scenarios and estimate land requirements against each scenario. This paper first performs literature reviews on the availability of land resource, past and future trends in land use changes, demand of lands for food production, and potential expansion of croplands. The energy demands towards 2035 are compiled from energy scenarios derived by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the British Petroleum (BP). This paper also reviewed bio-physiological characteristics of these energy crops to determine whether they are cultivable under tropical climatic conditions in developing regions. This paper found that projected energy demand through 2035 in developing regions could be provided by energy crops grown on a portion of surplus croplands or upgraded grasslands (27% and 22% respectively for miscanthus scenario). Sustainable land management practices, improved agricultural productivity, and adopting suitable energy crops cultivation can potentially supply increasing energy demands. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This review describes the situation and the varying potential of energy supply utilization of countries in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). This exercise reveals that the increase in energy consumption is associated with economic growth and population expansion. The interconnectivity between energy use and national level, as well as the connection between energy utilization and gross domestic product (GDP), which is an indicator of economic development, must be explained to determine the significance of national energy utility in these countries. Therefore, alternative energy source utilization is necessary for the provision of an appreciable constituent of imminent energy requirements in sectors that utilize energy. Alternative energy source utilization is a crucial factor in ensuring the total capacity of energy sources in various growing economies of the world where clean energy is unavailable. Furthermore, some of these countries also possess alternative energy sources such as hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. This paper provides details on sustainable energy supply developments in OIC countries. These countries must sustainably develop energy despite their sufficient wealth in crude oil and natural gas. The main purpose of this study is to determine economic growth in relation to energy supply to facilitate sustainable development. In addition, this paper suggests necessary requirements to sustain the energy development processes in OIC countries and as well as some stages that must be adopted to enhance development at a sustainable rate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: India is facing acute energy shortage that is likely to affect its economic development. There are severe supply side constraints in term of coal and gas shortages that are likely to continue in the near future. Hence, in its current focus to solving the energy shortage problem and sustaining the development trajectory, the country should aim at a balance between supply side and demand side measures. Energy Efficiency in end use is increasingly gaining importance as one of the most cost effective options for achieving short to medium term energy savings. India has initiated the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency under National Action Plan for Climate Change which addresses various aspects of energy efficiency such as technology, financing, fiscal incentive and also creation of energy efficiency as a market instrument. However, even though energy efficiency has substantial scope in the Indian subcontinent, the market for energy efficiency has been limited. This paper discusses the concept of mega Demand Side Management projects as a DSM Power Plant. A DSM Power Plant acts as an umbrella with multiple energy efficiency schemes under its ambit aimed at transforming energy efficiency into a business by providing a push to the scale of operation as well as financial sustenance to energy efficiency projects. This paper expounds on the various aspects of DSM Power Plant in terms of its policy and institutional mechanism for the large scale implementation of energy efficiency in India. This paper provides an illustration of the concept of DSM Power Plant model through a case study in one of the states (Rajasthan) of India. Further, a comparative analysis of the cost of generation from DSM Power Plant and a representative conventional power plant (CPP) in Rajasthan has been undertaken and the DSM Power Plant comes out to be a more cost effective option. The concept of DSM Power Plant will not only address the issue of energy shortages but will also help the financially thwarted utilities to reduce their revenue deficit in the near future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In 2009, an estimated 585 million people had no access to electricity services in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike many other regions of the world, under current assumptions, that figure is expected to rise significantly to about 652 million by 2030-an unsustainable and unacceptable situation. Knowing of the intrinsic linkages between access to energy services and development, national governments and regional organisations have identified the urgent need for accelerated electrification rates. Some of the established and emerging concepts, systems and technologies grouped under the term ‘Smart Grids’ may offer an important contribution to achieving universal access to electricity. We argue that these Smart Grid advances may enable sub-Saharan African countries to leapfrog elements of traditional power systems and accelerate and improve electrification efforts. We introduce the notion of Just Grids to reflect the need for power systems to contribute towards equitable and inclusive economic and social development without marginalising the poor. The paper reviews the literature, and identifies specific options that could be implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. After selecting criteria that focus on potential impact as well as requirements for their implementation, a qualitative first-pass assessment of the potential of these options is made. This paper provides support for policy development, and suggests areas for further, more detailed research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper analyzed the interactions among China’s economic growth and its energy consumption, air emissions and air environmental protection investment during 2000–2007. Conventional energy and emergy are applied to quantify energy consumption and emissions’ impact, respectively. The five indicators based on money, energy and emergy, including ratio of nonrenewable energy to renewable energy (RNR), energy use per unit GDP (EUPG), environmental cost per unit GDP (ECPG), impact of emissions per unit energy consumption (IEPEC), and environmental benefit per unit environmental protection investment (EBPEI), are presented to depict the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and impact of air emissions and air environmental protection investment. The results show that energy consumption rapidly rises with China’s fast economic growth; however, energy efficiency and environmental loading intensity from energy consumption are reduced simultaneously but their improvements fall far behind economic growth rate. Impact of air emissions, mainly composed of impact of emissions on human health (especially dust), is slightly decreased. The performance of air environmental protection investment is obviously declined in the study period. Generally speaking, the conflict among economy, energy and air environment protection is slightly mitigated but still acute due to great dependence of China’s economy on fossil energy and inefficient environmental protection measures. Finally, this paper discusses the corresponding issues, and then puts forward some related suggestions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Automobiles are considered as the main energy consumer in the transportation sector. According to the National Energy Balance, its accounted for about 36% of the total energy consumption in Malaysia. In order to reduce energy consumption in this sector, this country must consider setting fuel economy standards for motor vehicles sometime in near future. The first step toward developing fuel economy standards is to create a precise test and rating procedure for the automobiles. The test procedure is the technical foundation for all related programs namely; fuel economy standards, fuel economy labels and incentive programs. The test conditions should represent the driving situations and environment of the country. This paper is attempts to present a critical review on fuel economy testing procedure around the world and to propose a process for selecting a fuel economy test procedure for automobiles based on the conditions and requirements of the country. The internationally recognize test procedure adopted by several countries is also presented in this paper. Even though the paper only discusses the test procedure for automobiles, the methods can be directly applied for other types of vehicles and in other countries without major modifications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper analyzed the potential implementation of hybrid photovoltaic (PV)/wind turbine/diesel system in southern city of Malaysia, Johor Bahru. HOMER (hybrid optimization model for electric renewable) simulation software was used to determine the technical feasibility of the system and to perform the economical analysis of the system. There were seven different system configurations, namely stand-alone diesel system, hybrid PV–diesel system with and without battery storage element, hybrid wind–diesel system with and without battery storage element, PV–wind–diesel system with and without storage element, will be studied and analyzed. The simulations will be focused on the net present costs, cost of energy, excess electricity produced and the reduction of CO2 emission for the given hybrid configurations. At the end of this paper, PV–diesel system with battery storage element, PV–wind–diesel system with battery storage element and the stand-alone diesel system were analyzed based on high price of diesel. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: It is a well known fact that eight countries have 81% of all world crude oil reserves, six countries have 70% of all natural gas reserves and eight countries have 89% of all coal reserves. Energy is central to achieving the interrelated economic, social, and environmental aims of sustainable human development. But if we are to realise this important goal, the kinds of energy we produce and the ways we use them will have to change. Otherwise, environmental damage will accelerate, inequity will increase, and global economic growth will be jeopardised. Energy produced and used in ways that support human development in all its social, economic and environmental dimensions is what is meant by sustainable energy. The generation of energy by clean, efficient and environmental-friendly means is now one of the major challenges for engineers and scientists. This paper reviews a proposed energy-related solution to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security. It discusses recent topics related directly to energy production such as fuel cells (FCs) which represent a promising clean and efficient energy conversion technology. The paper also focuses on those technologies which, in terms of cost, cleanliness, reliability and availability, have the potential to compete with conventional energy conversion systems and to reach commercialisation phase before 2015. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper investigates the causality relationships among energy consumption, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and income in India using a dynamic modeling approach. The paper also utilises an innovation accounting method to investigate profiles of the macroeconomic variables persisting from an unanticipated shock in innovation. Our results provide evidence of the existence of bi-directional Granger causality between energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the long-run but neither CO2 emissions nor energy consumption causes movements in real income. There is no causality relationship between energy consumption and income in any direction in the long-run implying that India could follow energy conservation and efficiency improvement policies without impeding economic growth. This will allow India to reduce CO2 emissions without affecting its economic growth and contribute significantly towards combating global warming as well. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Low carbon electricity is essential for China''s low carbon development. In the paper low carbon electricity is defined as an economy body manages to realize its potential economic growth fueled by less electricity consumption, which can be characterized by indexes of GDP electricity intensity and CO2 emissions per unit electricity generation. IRSP is proposed by Hu to implement power planning on state level in deregulated power sector and is used in the paper to study China''s power planning into 2030. A business-as-usual scenario is projected as baseline for comparison while low carbon electricity development based on IRSP is studied. Results show that, with IRSP, China could save energy by 1.5 billion toes and reduce CO2 emission by 5.7 billion tons, during 2010–2030. Super Smart Grid (SSG) must be constructed as the physical foundation of IRSP. The main components of developing SSG in China are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Energy is a vital input for social and economic development of any nation. Currently the industrial sector is consuming about 37% of the world''s total delivered energy use for diverse activities in manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction. It was reported that global industrial energy consumption is estimated to grow from 5.129E+07GWh in 2006 to 7.198E+07GWh in 2030 for the next 25 years. Presently, fossil fuel based energy such as oil, coal, and natural gas are the major sources of energy for industrial activities. Over 80% of total industrial energy needs are met by fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide which is responsible for negative impacts to the environment. This paper aims at reviewing diverse types of fuels used in industries. It starts with reviewing world fuel consumption trends, world carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption trends in industry. Characteristics including fuels energy contents, density, composition, emissions factors and many others factors have also been reviewed. This paper also reflects the possibility of using alternative fuels in industries. It has been found that switching to alternative fuels can offer many social and economic advantages and will result in a positive impact on the environment. Moreover, many alternative fuels have been found to have good energy content those are comparable with fossil fuels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Since Taiwan imports more than 99% of energy supply from foreign countries, energy security has always been the first priority for government to formulate energy policy. The development of renewable energy not only contributes to the independence of energy supply, but also achieves benefits of economic development and environmental protection. Based upon information available to public, the present paper reassesses reserves of various renewable energies in Taiwan. The assessment includes seven kinds of renewable energies, namely, solar energy, wind power, biomass energy, wave energy, tidal energy, geothermal energy and hydropower, which are all commercialized and matured in terms of current technologies. Other renewable energies, which have not proven as matured as the aforementioned ones, are only assessed preliminarily in this paper, such as second generation of biomass, deep geothermal energy, the Kuroshio power generation and ocean thermal energy conversion. According to the estimation of this paper, the reserve of wind energy, up to 29.9kWh/d/p (i.e., kWh per day per person), is the largest one among seven kinds of renewable energies in Taiwan, followed by 24.27kWh/d/p of solar energy, 4.55kWh/d/p of biomass, 4.58kWh/d/p of ocean energy, 0.67kWh/d/p of geothermal energy and 16.79kWh/d/p of hydropower. If regarding biomass as a primary energy, and assuming 40% being the average efficiency to convert primary energy into electricity, the total power of the seven kinds of renewable energy reserves is about 78.03kWh/d/p, which is equal to 2.75 times of 28.35kWh/d/p of national power generation in 2008. If the reserves of 54.93kWh/d/p estimated from other four kinds of renewable energies that have not technically matured yet are also taken into account, it will result that the reserves of renewable energy in Taiwan can be quite abundant. Although the results of the assessment point out that Taiwan has abundant renewable energy resources, the four inherent shortcomings – low energy density, high cost of power generation, instability of power supply, and current cost of renewable energy being still higher than that of fossil energy – have to be overcome first, before renewable energy is actually formed as a main component in national energy mix. The measures executed by government to break through these barriers further include the upgrade of the technological level, the formulation of the necessary policies, and the work together from all levels for the overall promotion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]