No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Power outages and economic growth in Africa
Abstract
This paper estimates the total effect of power outages on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1995-2007. Outages are instrumented using a satellite-based measure of lightning density. As suggested by Henderson et al. (2011), we also combine Penn World Tables GDP data with satellite-based data on nightlights to arrive at a more accurate measure of economic growth. Our results suggest that the annual economic growth drag of a weak power infrastructure is about 2 percentage points.
... The frequency and intensity of these outages have increased substantially in recent years, and while efforts are underway to improve the performance of the system, electricity supply is projected to remain significantly constrained in the medium term. While several studies document the negative effects of these outages on economic growth in the country (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013;Volkwyn and Kleynhans, 2014;Walsh et al., 2021Walsh et al., , 2023Mabugu and Inglesi-Lotz, 2022;South African Reserve Bank, 2023), which are anticipated to translate into significant labour market effects, there is a striking absence of such evidence. 1 By merging individual-level, nationally representative labour force survey data with high-frequency electricity supply and demand data not available in the public domain and privately provided by South Africa's national electricity supplier from 2008-2023, we provide both a descriptive and causal analysis of the labour market effects of power outages in South Africa on both the extensive and intensive margins. ...
... Our study makes several contributions to existing literatures. First and broadly, it is situated within the large literature of the economic effects of power outages in developing countries (Arnold et al., 2008;Eberhard et al., 2011;Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013;Fattouh and El-Katiri, 2013;Amadi, 2015;Fisher-Vanden et al., 2015;Cole et al., 2018;Magongo and Sacolo, 2018;Fakih et al., 2020;Meles, 2020;Chen et al., 2023). It thus contributes to the literature on the relationship between infrastructure improvements and economic development (Dinkelman, 2011;Hjort and Poulsen, 2019;Lee et al., 2020;Fried and Lagakos, 2021;Hjort and Tian, 2021;Abbasi et al., 2022;Mensah and Traore, 2024). ...
... Several studies have estimated or simulated the macroeconomic consequences of load shedding in South Africa, with a focus on output. While the data, methods, and magnitudes of estimates differ, there is a broad consensus of an inverse relationship between economic growth and load shedding (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013;Volkwyn and Kleynhans, 2014;Walsh et al., 2021Walsh et al., , 2023Mabugu and Inglesi-Lotz, 2022;South African Reserve Bank, 2023). Walsh et al. (2021) estimate that load shedding cost the South African economy ZAR43.5 billion in 2022 South African Rands (US$6.2 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP) 8 terms) from 2007 to 2019, approximately equivalent to the impact of the 2008/09 global financial crisis. ...
Frequent electricity outages threaten to impede the benefits of expanded access achieved by many developing countries in recent decades. A large literature documents these negative effects, however almost none consider labour market effects. This paper merges labour force survey microdata with high-frequency electricity supply and demand data to provide the first descriptive and causal estimates of the relationships between outages and labour market outcomes in South Africa, a country characterized by frequent, severe outages referred to as load shedding. We reveal negative associations with both employment and working hours, with the former being more pronounced. Both are not evident for low outage levels but increase with outage intensity. We document significant heterogeneity across firm sizes and industries, highlighting the vulnerability of workers in small firms. Using a Difference-in-Differences design, we exploit variation induced by a unique mitigation policy in Cape Town to show that outage mitigation significantly increases both employment and working hours, but more so the former, consistent with our descriptive estimates. We do not find heterogeneous employment effects by firm size, but highlight meaningful working hours effects for workers in small firms only, again highlighting their vulnerability. No evidence of heterogeneity across industries is found, and causal effects on hourly wages or monthly earnings could not be credibly identified. Overall, this study provides evidence of the negative labour market effects of power outages in developing countries, particularly for workers in small firms, on both the extensive and intensive margins.
... The effects of electricity on firm performance (Amos & Zanhouo, 2019;Azimoh et al., 2017;Fried & Lagakos, 2023;Nguimkeu & Okou, 2021;Olkkonen et al., 2023;Winklmaier et al., 2020) and on the overall economic growth (Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Dagnachew et al., 2017;Falchetta et al., 2021;Lawal et al., 2020) are well documented. Nevertheless, frequent power outages have been a common feature in most of the SSA countries (Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Cole et al., 2018;Farquharson et al., 2018;Kaseke & Hosking, 2013;Mensah, 2016), affecting not only growth but also the revenue mobilisation. ...
... The effects of electricity on firm performance (Amos & Zanhouo, 2019;Azimoh et al., 2017;Fried & Lagakos, 2023;Nguimkeu & Okou, 2021;Olkkonen et al., 2023;Winklmaier et al., 2020) and on the overall economic growth (Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Dagnachew et al., 2017;Falchetta et al., 2021;Lawal et al., 2020) are well documented. Nevertheless, frequent power outages have been a common feature in most of the SSA countries (Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Cole et al., 2018;Farquharson et al., 2018;Kaseke & Hosking, 2013;Mensah, 2016), affecting not only growth but also the revenue mobilisation. A strand of literature shows that power outrages have a strong impact on economic growth (Blimpo et al., 2020). ...
... Other scholars have used the endogenous growth model to analyse the role of education and good healthcare in economic growth exhausting time series (Cetin & Dogan, 2015;Islam & Alam, 2022;Jalil & Idrees, 2013), cross-sectional (Nurvita et al., 2022;Ridhwan et al., 2022) and dynamic panel set up (Adeleye et al., 2022;Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Dialga & Ouoba, 2022;Gaidhani et al., 2022;Gaies, 2022;Mabrouki, 2023;Rangongo & Ngwakwe, 2019;Sharma, 2018;Soegiarto et al., 2022;Sultana et al., 2022). Numerous studies have delved greatly into the effect electricity outages at firm level (Alam, 2013;Blimpo et al., 2018;Cole et al., 2018;Osei-Gyebi & Dramani, 2023;Wang et al., 2023;Xu et al., 2022) and on growth (Ali et al., 2020;Fried & Lagakos, 2023;Ghazouani et al., 2020;Lin & Liu, 2016;Magazzino et al., 2021;Mezghani & Haddad, 2017). ...
Electricity is an important ingredient for development; however, inadequate electricity supply and its frequent fluctuations adversely affect the productivity and profits of small and medium enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In turn, the adverse effects pose challenges to economic growth and subsequently narrow further the low tax base in the region. Information regarding the macroeconomic effects of electricity fluctuations on the tax base in SSA is limited, thus calling for a detailed and refined study of this nature to analyse the effect of electricity fluctuations on the tax base in SSA. A bias-corrected linear dynamic estimator is employed for the analysis using a panel dataset for 41 SSA countries from 2000 to 2022. The results show that electricity consumption is positively related to the tax base in SSA while electricity fluctuation creates fiscal losses in terms of narrowing the tax base. Specifically, gross capital formation and informal economic activities are adversely affected by electricity fluctuations. This is a dramatic dampening effect that requires policy attention. The results indicate that the African governments in SSA need to increase investments in (including renovation of) the electricity infrastructures and diversify sources of energy into visible and tangible levels. This is because unreliable supply of electricity denies these countries the benefit of digital transformation, especially internet access. Sustaining the pace of stable and reliable electricity is paramount for economic growth and the growth of tax revenue in SSA countries. The article offers a highlight in energy policy review to include reliability as a prime concern for elevating economic growth and tax base in SSA countries.
... Electricity supply in many lower-income countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, is often characterized by inconsistency and inefficiency, with frequent and long-lasting outages serving as the consequence. By forcing households and firms to maintain a stock of alternatives, such as diesel generators and back-up batteries, both predictable and unpredictable outages raise the private and social costs of energy services, hindering the benefits of improved access (Andersen and Dalgaard 2013;Fakih et al. 2020;Lee et al. 2020;Meles 2020;Meles et al. 2021;Elliott et al. 2021;Hashemi 2021;Mensah 2024). ...
... A large empirical literature documents the adverse effects of power outages in developing countries on various outcomes, such as economic growth, firm productivity, firm sales, and other production process outcomes (Arnold et al. 2008;Eberhard et al. 2011;Andersen and Dalgaard 2013;Fattouh and El-Katiri 2013;Amadi 2015;Fisher-Vanden et al. 2015;Cole et al. 2018;Magongo and Sacolo 2018;Fakih et al. 2020;Meles 2020;Elliott et al. 2021;Chen et al. 2022Chen et al. , 2023Mensah 2024). These effects appear particularly strong for economic agents who are unable to mitigate outages, such as through the use of self-generation (Cole et al. 2018). ...
... The frequency and intensity of these outages have increased substantially in recent years, and while efforts are underway to improve the performance of the system, electricity supply is projected to remain significantly constrained in the medium term. While several studies document negative effects of these outages on economic growth (Andersen and Dalgaard 2013;Volkwyn and Kleynhans 2014;Walsh et al. 2021Walsh et al. , 2023Mabugu and Inglesi-Lotz 2022;South African Reserve Bank 2023), which are anticipated to translate into significant labour market effects, there is a striking absence of such evidence. 1 We merge individual-level, nationally representative labour force survey data with macroeconomic data and high-frequency electricity production and consumption data not available in the public domain and privately provided by South Africa's national electricity supplier from 2008 to 2023 and exploit temporal variation in the incidence and intensity of outages to estimate their associations with labour market outcomes. ...
Frequent electricity outages threaten to impede the benefits of expanded access achieved by many developing countries in recent decades. A large literature documents these negative effects, however almost none consider labour market effects. This paper merges labour force survey microdata with high-frequency electricity supply and demand data to provide the first estimates of the relationships between outages and labour market outcomes in South Africa, a country characterized by frequent, severe outages referred to as load shedding. Exploiting temporal variation in outage incidence and intensity, we find that load shedding is associated with significantly lower employment rates, working hours, and earnings on average. Employment appears more sensitive relative to intensive margin outcomes, threatening job creation and preservation efforts. These negative relationships, however, are not evident for low levels of load shedding, but their strength markedly increases with load shedding intensity. We document further heterogeneity by firm size and industry, highlighting the vulnerability of jobs in manufacturing. Overall, our findings suggest that the South African labour market is largely insensitive to relatively low levels of load shedding; however, high levels appear especially costly.
... Reports have revealed that power interruptions had a significant overall impact on economic growth, with weak electricity infrastructure severely hindering growth. A 1% reduction in the duration of power outages was estimated to lead to a long-term economic growth of 2.86% [2]. In the latest research, an empirical study incorporating the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) into the economic growth model was conducted. ...
... The prediction of PV generation and load demand is implemented with LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) neural network and outputs the prediction results per minute [7]. Then, the prediction of PV generation and load demand would be given for calculation of residual energy in (2). Since the optimization of energy management in this paper is focused on the minimal operational cost of energy system, the hydrogen fuel cell would be activated only when the system is in the emergent condition. ...
Enhancement of system resilience of microgrid is important when the system is operated in the islanded mode. The commonly used clean energy in microgrid is the intermittent renewable energy which would deteriorate the system resilience of microgrid. To solve this problem, the residual energy pre-served in the energy storage system is introduced in this paper to extend the time duration of fundamental load demand when the power outage is present. The experiment is implemented in the demo system in the campus of National Central University to verify the performance of proposed management strategy.
... The interruption of key services such as electricity and water have huge impacts on small firms with low resources for mitigation. This restricts entrepreneurship; the number and types of industries and competition; and reduces the country's attractiveness to foreign investment [51][52][53]. For illustration, a survey by [54] indicated power outages in the industry sector caused output losses between 16% and 50% for 80% of industrial firms. ...
Cameroon, like most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is grappling with inadequate electricity generation capacity and energy security issues amid an increasing energy demand and the goal to ensure 100% access to electricity and clean cooking for its citizens. The government has identified the uptake of renewable energy technologies (RETs) as instrumental to increasing electricity generation, as well as meeting its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) commitments and overall long-term developmental goals. The nation’s strategies so far have yielded little results due to a combination of factors, ranging from financial to regulatory aspects. This study analyzes the existing renewable energy infrastructure, identifying the motivations and factors that influence the implementation of renewable energy policies and the challenges and barriers faced. It also explores the existing policy frameworks and regulatory mechanisms, provide insights into the policy gaps and suggests enabling mechanisms that will enable a more favorable environment for renewable energy investments and development in Cameroon. Although the policies posited are focused primarily for the energy system of Cameroon, they can be extended to sub-Saharan African countries and in the global context, provided that local conditions are accounted for. Adopting the recommended policy frameworks will stimulate, support and ensure the sustained development and deployment of renewable energy technologies in the nation and in the subregion.
... Blackouts impact revenue contributing to departments and households and multiply functioning costs for various sectors specifically the businesses in South Africa (Goldberg, 2015), in addition to fiscal expenses power outages can create other costs to the public (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013). ...
... Currently, the industrial sector uses nearly half of all the electricity produced worldwide (Note 2). Several studies have World Bank, 2004;Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Saxena et al., 2017;Cole et al., 2018). In Odisha, the industry sector contributes more than 36% to the Gross State Value Added (GSVA) (Note 3). ...
The paper examines the causal link between electricity consumption and Odisha’s economic growth using linear and nonlinear causality tests in annual data from 1981 to 2020. The study uses both linear and non-linear causality on aggregate and sectoral data. Based on the empirical analysis, the study finds that electricity consumption strongly granger causes state’s economic growth. Further, sectoral-level analysis shows that electricity consumption exhibits a strong causal relationship with the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. This finding is consistent for both linear and non-linear granger causality tests. Moreover, the estimation of long-run elasticity reveals that both secondary and tertiary sectors have greater than unity elasticity whereas the primary sector has less than unity elasticity. The rolling elasticity shows that elasticity is increasing over time and across the sectors, barring the tertiary sector. More mechanized activities in the primary sector will increase the consumption of electricity and more value addition to the economic growth of the state. The policy intervention would be to reduce electricity losses (leakages) as well as increase the production of electricity to increase economic growth. Considering the greater role of electricity in the state’s economic progress, intervention from both the state government and the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission, the regulatory body of the state, is very much essential.
... Access to clean energy at affordable cost is very important for improving the lives of the poor households. Lack of energy access may contribute to the deepening the size of shadow economy (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013;IEA, 2015;. ...
Purpose
Energy poverty is a global phenomenon, but its prevalence is enormous in most African countries, with a potential impact on quality of life. This study aims to investigate the impact of energy poverty on the shadow economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses panel data from 45 countries in Africa over a period of 1996–2018. Using panel cointegrating regression and panel vector auto-regression model in the generalized method of moments technique.
Findings
This study provides that energy poverty deepens the size of the shadow economy in Africa. It also documents that there is a bidirectional causality between shadow economy and energy poverty. Therefore, the two variables can predict each other.
Practical implications
The study suggests that lack of access to clean and modern energy services contributes to the depth of the shadow economy in Africa. African authorities are advised to strengthen rural and urban electrification initiatives by providing adequate energy infrastructure so as to reduce the level of energy poverty in the region. To ensure energy sustainability delivery, the study proposes that the creation of national and local capacities would be the most effective manner to guarantee energy accessibility and affordability. Also, priorities should be given to the local capital mobilization and energy subsidies for the energy poor. Energy literacy may also contribute to the sustainability and the usage of modern energy sources in Africa.
Originality/value
Previous studies reveal that income inequality contributes to the large size of shadow economy in developing economies. However, none of these studies analyzed the role of energy poverty and its implications for underground economic operations. Inadequate access to modern energy sources is likely to deepen the prevalence of informality in developing nations. Based on this, this study provides fresh evidence on the implications of energy deprivation on the shadow economy in Africa using a heterogeneous panel econometric framework. The study contributes to the literature by advocating that the provision of affordable modern energy sources for rural and urban settlements, and the creation of good energy infrastructure for the firms in the formal economy would not only improve the quality of life but also important to discourage underground economic operations in developing economies.
... Uncertainties regarding future growth rates are exacerbated by unstable markets. Specifically, the growth of the South African economy is affected by the unpredictability of electricity supply (Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Atems & Hotaling, 2018), growth of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange's (JSE's) resource companies is significantly influenced by the global commodities cycle (Szczygielski & Chipeta, 2015) and the returns on the JSE All-Share Index (ALSI) are subject to the volatility of the rand (Barr et al., 2007). These uncertainties provide challenges to practitioners who need to create a valuation that is realistic and as accurate as possible (Turcas et al., 2016). ...
Purpose: Global merger and acquisition and capital market activity have increased over the last decade. A key determinant of the value of these transactions are the results of corporate valuations, which require technical expertise as well as professional judgement. The purpose of this research is to identify aspects of corporate valuations, for the purposes of mergers and acquisitions, which require professional judgement and to understand why the judgement is necessary.Design/methodology/approach: We followed a mixed-method approach by gathering data from valuation practitioners using a survey, followed by semi-structured interviews.Findings/results: We find that professional judgement is required throughout the process, from identifying the most appropriate approach to adjusting theoretical valuation inputs. Industry and market nuances are key reasons for professional judgement as is the perceived lack of appropriate asset pricing models.Practical implications: The views of practitioners, juxtaposed with academic literature on investment theory, have the potential to contribute to the establishment of best practice in corporate valuations.Originality/value: Prior academic research has focused largely on the technical aspects of corporate valuations. In this research, we present the first-hand experiences of practitioners whose professional judgements are a key contributor to the valuations that underpin corporate actions in the South African market. This research extends both academic as well as corporate research.
... The lack of access to reliable power generation sources has been identified by the South African government as one of the key barriers to economic growth [45]. Andresen et al. [66] estimated the total effect of power outages on economic growth in SSA over the period 1995-2007. They conclude that the lack of reliable energy infrastructure contributes to an approximately two-percentage-point loss of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). ...
This paper examines patterns and drivers of energy choices for cooking and lighting in South Africa using the Statistics South Africa Census data at the district municipality (districts) level. Employing spatial and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis, the findings show that electricity is the main source of energy for cooking across South Africa. However, there is a large swathe of the country covering districts such as Vhembe and Mopani in Limpopo, eastern Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, and northern Eastern Cape provinces where wood is the predominantly used energy type for cooking. There is almost uniform use of gas for cooking across the country. Electricity is the main energy source for lighting in South Africa. It is followed by candles, likely explained by loadshedding, and, surprisingly, solar energy a distant third. In terms of drivers, dwelling types play a statistically significant role in what energy type to use for cooking and lighting, albeit differently. In terms of lighting, formal dwelling is positively related to the choice of electricity and informal dwelling is related to the choice of electricity (negatively) and candles (positively) for lighting. The level of higher education, household size, and the dependency ratio have varied statistically significant roles in the choice of either energy type for cooking or lighting by formal, informal, and traditional dwellers. Relevant policy prescriptions that are needed to engender the country towards sustainable energy use, diversification of energy types from electricity produced from fossil fuels to other renewable energy sources such as solar, and reduction in over-dependency on the biomass energy sources such as paraffin and wood, especially in rural and poor districts, are proposed.
... The development and adoption of fintech is deemed to rely heavily on energy sources which are in acute shortage in several parts of Africa. Andersen & Dalgaard (2013) note that a significant proportion of sub-Saharan Africans do not have constant access to electricity, and the erratic supply has forced many African firms and households to pay a chunk of their incomes to provide their own electricity. The data presented in Figure 3, which illustrates the global and African average access to electricity during the sample period, provides additional support for the notion that energy poverty is pervasive in African nations. ...
... The development and growth of industrial production depend on the quantity, quality, and cost of energy supplied (Greenwood et al., 2005;Melick, 2014), and developing countries continue to face significant challenges in ensuring a stable and adequate energy supply for their industrial activities (Thomas et al., 2010). To promote manufacturing and stimulate economic growth and development in these countries, it is crucial to have a reliable and affordable energy supply for industries (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013). Insufficient power supply leads to higher production costs, reduced manufacturing capacity, and hampers economic growth, development, and the competitiveness of domestic firms in the global market (Costa-Campi et al., 2018). ...
Balancing environmental objectives with energy security poses a significant challenge for Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies undergoing substantial energy sector reforms, particularly in the electricity sector. Apart from implementing market principles, improving electricity infrastructure and increasing the use of renewable energy sources (RES) are crucial for fostering industrial and overall economic growth. This study analyzes a panel of 15 Central and Eastern European economies (CEE) from 1995 to 2021. It employs various analytical techniques such as cross-sectional dependency testing, unit root testing, cointegration analysis, and the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator. The results indicate that inefficient electricity infrastructure negatively impacts GDP and industry value-added (IVA) growth rates, regardless of control variables. Conversely, electricity generated from RES positively affects GDP and IVA growth rates in fully developed models. However, increased RES-generated electricity in models without control variables adversely affects IVA growth rates. These findings, coupled with the specific characteristics of CEE economies, lead to policy recommendations for sustainable economic and energy development.
... (1) Africa can be tagged as a moderately free economy with paltry access to electricity (with a mean value of 54 and 46, respectively). These values are also in tandem with the previous literature (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013). Table 2 shows the results of the cross-sectional dependence (CD), the unit root, and cointegration tests. ...
We examine the interactive effects of economic freedom and energy poverty across different conditional distributions on the quality of life in Africa. We find that free market economies with adequate supplies of electricity significantly improves the quality of life in the region. The effectiveness of economic freedom policy and access to electricity is more noticeable among countries with a lower quality of life, which suggests that if the qualities of institutions in poor African countries were strengthened and there were a constant supply of energy, the vast majority of Africans would prosper.
... Thus, consistent with D'Andrea and Limodio (2023) , our findings of a positive impact of high-speed internet on FDI in the banking sector provide suggestive evidence on the channels through which access to high-speed internet stimulates financial development. Findings on the complementary role of access to electricity are also consistent with Andersen and Dalgaard (2013) and Mensah (2018) , who show that (unreliable) electricity provision is a challenge to economic development in Africa. ...
Does ambient infrastructural quality affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries? This paper investigates how the arrival of high-speed internet in Africa triggered FDI into the region. It also explores the role of complementary infrastructure, such as access to electricity and road connectivity, in amplifying the impact of internet connectivity on investment. To causally estimate impacts, the paper exploits plausibly exogenous variations in access to high-speed internet induced by the staggered arrival of submarine fiber-optic internet cables and spatial variations in terrestrial fiber cable networks across locations on the continent. Findings from the paper indicate that access to high-speed internet induces FDI, particularly in the service sector, with the finance, technology, retail, and health services subsectors as the main beneficiaries. Access to (hard) infrastructure, such as electricity and roads, amplifies the impact of internet connectivity on FDI, thus highlighting the role of complementarities in the impact of infrastructure. Further, the results suggest that improvement in quality of governance and increased performance of incumbent firms are plausible mechanisms.
... Numerous studies (including Kim and Cho, 2017;Cole et al., 2018) have shown the impact of power outages on a firm's cost, sales, and productivity. Andersen and Dalgaard (2013) find that poor electricity supply infrastructure significantly negatively impacts economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. There can be various sources of system failures in the power sector leading to power outages, such as tripping of transmission lines, aging of devices, improper management, and voltage collapse (Wu et al., 2021). ...
Like in many other developing countries, power outages are prevalent in Pakistan. Consumers are compelled to
explore alternative energy strategies when the overhead of the outage surpasses that of implementing a backup
plan. Inverters, small generators, and solar energy systems (SESs) are among the common backup options. This
study utilizes primary data collected from the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi to delve into the factors
influencing consumers’ perception-based choices regarding backup solutions. To account for various backup
choices, we employ multinomial logistic regression techniques on a sample of 952 households. Our analysis
reveals that perception-based variables, such as electricity theft and decreasing satisfaction, negatively impact
the likelihood of selecting off-grid renewable options like solar technology. Moreover, we observe that consumers
residing in rented houses prefer inverters and generators, while homeownership significantly influences the adoption of all three backup choices. Interestingly, the rural-urban location of the household does not influence the decision to opt for an SES. These findings carry important policy implications for energy-deficient regions. The transition towards solar energy is driven by the household’s strategy to ensure uninterrupted energy backup
while simultaneously reducing the cost of electricity consumption.
... Policy-driven research has a history of tacitly supporting this assumption. For example, reliability scholarship has long focused primarily on businesses and firms, as well as on countries' GDP gains from electrification (e.g., Allcott et al., 2016;Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Foster & Steinbuks, 2009), rather than on households or individuals, even though electricity systems serve households and businesses alike (Jacome et al., 2019). Meanwhile, studies that have considered the impact of unreliability on households have often limited themselves to household productivity and ignore issues of comfort and overall quality-of-life (see, e.g., Amadi, 2015;Burlando, 2010). ...
Electricity users in sub-Saharan Africa face persistent unreliable and unaffordable access. However, users' perspectives and experiences have largely been absent from policy literature. Content analysis of energy access policy literature reveals two long-held assumptions: (1) any connection is better than no connection; (2) residents who object to this poor access have an entitlement problem. This paper critically interrogates these assumptions by using ethnographic data gathered during fieldwork in Unguja, Tanzania. It finds that long-held policy justifications are easily contravened by real-life experiences of sub-par service and counters conventional narratives that blame users for the failure of electricity systems in their communities. K E Y W O R D S energy access, electricity development, policy narratives, SDG 7, Tanzania
... Focusing on the electricity sector makes an interesting case since research on industry and country level in Africa shows huge consequences as a result of interrupted electricity network: As the occurrence of power outages increases by 1%, the output of a firm is estimated to reduce by 3.3% in a short run, and the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita reduces by 2.9% in the long run (Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013;Mensah, 2018). The disruption of services, such as electricity, and water, heavily impacts small firms with a low ability to cope, and this limits entrepreneurship and competition (Alby et al., 2013;Poczter, 2017). ...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2021 report has noted the perceived rise in severe weather phenomena such as heat radiations, hurricanes, flooding, and droughts and the rising scientific evidence attributing these events to anthropogenic sources of climate change. Cameroon as a nation is equally exposed to these climate vulnerabilities, and contributing to global climate efforts is imperative. She has earmarked the integration of 25% renewables in its electricity production mix and a 32% emission reduction, all as part of her commitment to global climate action. The fresh commitments coupled with a rapidly growing power demand have paved the way for a revolutionized approach to electricity generation in Cameroon. However, the imminent changes, as well as their implications, remain uncertain. This study explores how these emission reduction targets can be achieved through the adoption of a more sustainable power transition, which provides realistic solutions for emission reduction, escaping high carbon pathways. The assessment of the level at which long-term electricity generation scenarios in Cameroon could be renewable energy intensive was done using the Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) tool following a backcasting approach. The study noted that there is an implementation gap between earmarked policy ambitions and existing measures. The study recommended several opportunities in aspects, such as suitable share of technologies, administrative reforms, and required adjustments within the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which the government could exploit in the electricity sector to sail across the challenging trade-offs needed to become a sustainable economy in a carbon-constrained world. It equally examines actions that could help close the gap between earmarked policy ambitions and existing pathways and proposes cost-effective methods that were identified as priorities.
... The negative impact of power outages is well-documented for both firms (Pasha et al., 1989, Beenstock, 1991, Tishler, 1993, Beenstock et al., 1997, Serra and Fierro, 1997, Steinbuks and Foster, 2010, Alby et al., 2013, Allcott et al., 2016, Cole et al., 2018, Elliott et al., 2021, Chen et al., 2022 and households (Carlsson and Martinsson, 2007, Carlsson et al., 2011, Amador et al., 2013, Chakravorty et al., 2014, Ozbafli and Jenkins, 2016, Poczter, 2017, Kennedy et al., 2019, Meles, 2020, Bajo-Buenestado, 2021, Carlsson et al., 2021, Deutschmann et al., 2021, Meles et al., 2021, Motz, 2021, Sedai et al., 2021b, Alberini et al., 2022, Aweke and Navrud, 2022, Lawson, 2022, Toto, 2022, as well as for the economy as a whole (Sanghvi, 1982, de Nooij et al., 2007, 2009, Andersen and Dalgaard, 2013, Reichl et al., 2013, Carranza and Meeks, 2021, Woo et al., 2021. The evidence is for all parts of the world, and all levels of development. ...
There are many indicators of energy security. Few measure what really matters -- affordable and reliable energy supply -- and the trade-offs between the two. Reliability is physical, affordability is economic. Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine highlights some of the problems with energy security, from long-term contracts being broken to supposedly secure supplies being diverted to retired power plants being recommissioned to spillovers to other markets. The transition to carbon-free energy poses new challenges for energy security, from a shift in dependence from some resources (coal, oil, gas) to others (rare earths, wind, sunshine) to substantial redundancies in the energy capital stock to undercapitalized energy companies, while regulatory uncertainty deters investment. Renewables improve energy security in one dimension, but worsen it in others, particularly long spells of little wind. Security problems with rare earths and borrowed capital are less pronounced, as stock rather than flow.
... However, "SSA countries need massive investments in capacity expansion of generation, transmission and distribution networks" [94]. While regional integration efforts are positive signs of future improvement [95], the weakness of the grid represents a major challenge to the effective harnessing of the resources produced [96]. According to the European Commission, quoted by IRENA [97], more than two thirds of SSA countries have "transmission networks where 50% or more of the lines are at least 30 years old" [98]. ...
The resource curse haunts countries whose economies have become dangerously specialized in the exploitation of a single resource. This curse threatens countries whose economies are poorly diversified and oriented mainly towards the export of their non-renewable natural resources, such as oil. What about the exploitation of an abundant renewable natural resource such as solar energy? Based on a case study of six solar power plants in six African countries (Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa), this paper analyzes the extent to which the impacts of the exploitation of these energy systems contribute to this curse. The research method is qualitative (296 interviews) and quantitative (use of a sustainability index), making it possible to analyze the impacts of solar power plants on four levels (local, regional, national, and international). Our results reveal four findings symptomatic of the resource curse: (i) the emergence of conflict situations, (ii) fragile local development, (iii) latent financial risk, and (iv) limited economic development leverage. In short, the resource curse linked to the use of renewable energies seems to bring another challenge to the landscape of energy transition.
... It is a certainty that this number will be lower than 87%, but at present there is no systemic global monitoring of electric power services [2]. Supply shortfalls and disruptions constrain economic development [3] and negatively impact education and human health [4]. The use of diesel generators during outages has its own set of economic and health impacts [5]. ...
Electric power services are fundamental to prosperity and economic development. Disruptions in the electricity power service can range from minutes to days. Such events are common in many developing economies, where the power generation and delivery infrastructure is often insufficient to meet demand and operational challenges. Yet, despite the large impacts, poor data availability has meant that relatively little is known about the spatial and temporal patterns of electric power reliability. Here, we explore the expressions of electric power instability recorded in temporal profiles of satellite observed surface lighting collected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) low light imaging day/night band (DNB). The nightly temporal profiles span from 2012 through to mid-2020 and contain more than 3000 observations, each from a total of 16 test sites from Africa, Asia, and North America. We present our findings in terms of various novel indicators. The preprocessing steps included radiometric adjustments designed to reduce variance due to the view angle and lunar illumination differences. The residual variance after the radiometric adjustments suggests the presence of a previously unidentified source of variability in the DNB observations of surface lighting. We believe that the short dwell time of the DNB pixel collections results in the vast under-sampling of the alternating current lighting flicker cycles. We tested 12 separate indices and looked for evidence of power instability. The key characteristic of lights in cities with developing electric power services is that they are quite dim, typically 5 to 10 times dimmer for the same population level as in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In fact, the radiances for developing cities are just slightly above the detection limit, in the range of 1 to 10 nanowatts. The clearest indicator for power loss is the percent outage. Indicators for supply adequacy include the radiance per person and the percent of population with detectable lights. The best indicator for load-shedding is annual cycling, which was found in more than half of the grid cells in two Northern India cities. Cities with frequent upward or downward radiance spikes can have anomalously high levels of variance, skew, and kurtosis. A final observation is that, barring war or catastrophic events, the year-on-year changes in lighting are quite small. Most cities are either largely stable over time, or are gradually increasing in indices such as the mean, variance, and lift, indicating a trajectory that proceeds across multiple years.
... However, with the excessive consumption of resources and the environment, it is bound to bring resource constraints, and the RECC reaches the upper limit, which makes it difficult to withstand rapid economic growth. Some scholars have researched the constraints of resources and the environment on economic growth (Andersen et al., 2013;Barbier, 1999;Eriksson, 2018). The continuous reduction of resources will cause their prices to rise, attracting a flood of investment. ...
The high-quality development of society needs the support of resource and environmental carrying capacity, and the improvement of resource and environmental carrying capacity is driven by the process of high-quality development. Therefore, how to realize the dynamic coordination of the two is an urgent problem to be solved. Different from previous studies which mainly focused on economic development and the environment, this paper considers all aspects of society and analyzes the interactive relationship between high-quality development and resource and environmental carrying capacity for the first time. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2020, a comprehensive evaluation index system is constructed, and the information entropy method, coupling coordination degree, and kernel density estimation model are applied to explore the coupling coordination relationship and spatial-temporal characteristics between resource and environmental carrying capacity and high-quality development. The results show that there are four nonlinear relationships between the resource and environmental carrying capacity and high-quality development, including simultaneous increase, first increase and then decrease, first decrease and then increase, and alternating fluctuation; Water resources per capita and the green coverage rate of the built-up area contributed the most to the resource and environmental carrying capacity subsystem, and GDP per capita and urbanization rate contributed the most to the high-quality development subsystem. From the time series, the coupling relationship between the two shows an upward trend over time. From the spatial series, the coupling relationship between the two is in a state of spatial aggregation. This paper discusses the results and puts forward policy recommendations, hoping to provide a reference for the coordinated development of the region. Moreover, this study provides a new perspective for the scientific construction of the relationship between resource and environmental carrying capacity and high-quality development on a global level.
... Individual country datasets are accessible at enterprisesurveys.org, to which researchers can register to get access to the data (EIB, 2021). Using microdata, scholars have produced plentiful academic papers on various topics, including energy and resources (Andersen & Dalgaard, 2013;Jain & Nandan, 2020;Montalbano & Nenci, 2019;Moyo, 2013;Zhang et al., 2020). ...
This study profiles manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Eurasian countries regarding their practices of energy efficiency investments and energy management techniques. Given that the energy efficiency gap could be larger for SMEs because of the barriers identified in the related literature, the profiling of SMEs regarding their energy efficiency practices could help design specific policies that could be adopted for SMEs with a higher likelihood of insufficient energy efficiency investments. Advanced machine learning techniques, such as the random forest algorithm, enable us to perform such profiling. In profiling SMEs, the article uses the group enterprise survey collected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development-European Investment Bank-World Bank. The results of the random forest algorithm suggest that the most important input variable to identify the firm behavior to make an effort to enhance energy efficiency or adopt any energy management method is the sector of the firm, followed by firm size, number of skilled workers, the expertise of the top manager, and the firm’s experience. Contrary to the main findings in the literature, the firm’s ownership structure is the least important factor in forecasting its energy efficiency efforts. The elements of a clean energy strategy do not matter for efforts to enhance the energy efficiency, either. These results suggest that if policymakers in Eurasia were to design policies for manufacturing SMEs to make them invest more in energy efficiency, they should address smaller, younger enterprises with relatively less human capital when giving public subsidies.
This study examines the effect of bilateral political ties on the stability of service exports. The results show that the deterioration of political ties can decrease the stability of service exports by strengthening non‐tariff barriers and weakening immigration networks. A decrease in voting similarity among trading partners in the United Nations General Assembly corresponds to heightened instability in service exports. In particular, political ties have a more pronounced impact on the stability of tourism service exports than on other services. Developing countries, in contrast to developed countries, should pay particular attention to the impact of political ties on the stability of service exports. Moreover, improvements in technological advantages and Internet openness in exporting countries can weaken the impact of political ties.
This study investigates the impact of infrastructure development on energy poverty in 28 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 2010–2021. Utilizing the Africa Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) as a comprehensive measure, the research examines both linear and nonlinear effects of infrastructure development on energy poverty reduction, while also exploring its influence on renewable energy production, underscoring its contribution to achieving sustainable development goals. The findings reveal that enhanced infrastructure significantly improves electricity access and alleviates energy poverty. The results further suggest that infrastructure development is only effective in alleviating energy poverty when a certain level of social development and environmental quality is achieved. Employing sensitivity analyses with alternative energy poverty indicators as well as physical infrastructure indicators confirms the stability of these results. This study underscores the importance of integrated infrastructure policies that consider social and environmental factors to effectively address energy poverty and support sustainable development goals in SSA.
Off-grid photovoltaic systems have been proposed as a panacea for economies with poor electricity access, offering a lower-cost “leapfrog” over grid infrastructure used in higher-income economies. Previous research examining pathways to electricity access may understate the role of off-grid photovoltaics as it has not considered reliability and carbon pricing impacts. We perform high-resolution geospatial analysis on universal household electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa that includes these aspects via least-cost pathways at different electricity demand levels. Under our “Tier 3" demand reference scenario, 24% of our study’s 470 million people obtaining electricity access by 2030 do so via off-grid photovoltaics. Including a unit cost for unmet demand of 0.50 US dollars (80/tonne CO2-eq) increases it to 38%. Our results indicate considerable diversity in the level of policy intervention needed between countries and suggest several regions where lower levels of policy intervention may be effective.
Electricity is one of the main pillars of economic, social, and technological developments in both developed and developing countries. Any power outage, whether total or partial, causes directly or indirectly enormous economic losses. Yemen is suffering from a severe economic crisis considered the worst in ancient times, this crisis began in parallel with the events of 2015 that led to the total power outage in Yemen.
The study aims to determine the impact of power outages, whether partial or total, on the economy and the deterioration of growth in Yemen by reviewing the rates of economic growth and GDP in addition to other economic data for the periods before and after the power outage, i.e. in the period before and after 2015.
The findings of the study indicate that reforming the electricity sector in Yemen and good management of power may lead to improving the economy by getting rid of the causes that lead directly or indirectly to the decline of the economy.
Keywords: Power outage, Electricity, Growth, GDP, Business, Economic, Development, Sustainable, Solar Panel, Yemen
This paper examines patterns and drivers of energy choices for cooking and lighting in South Africa using the Statistics South African (StatSA, 2022) Census data at district municipality (districts) levels. Employing spatial and regression analysis, the findings show that electricity is the main source of energy for cooking across South Africa. However, there is a large swathe of the country covering districts, such as Vhembe and Mopani in Limpopo, eastern Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, and northern Eastern Cape provinces, where wood is the predominantly used energy type for cooking. There is almost uniform use of gas for cooking across the country. Electricity is the main energy source for lighting in South Africa. It is followed by candles, likely explained by loadshedding, and surprisingly solar energy a distant third. In terms of drivers, dwelling types play statistically significant role in what energy type to use for cooking and lighting, albeit differently. In terms of lighting, formal dwelling is positively related to the choice of electricity and informal dwelling is related to the choice of electricity (negatively) and candles (positively) for lighting. The level of higher education, household size, and the dependency ratio have varied statistically significant roles in the choice of either energy type for cooking or lighting by formal, informal, and traditional dwellers. Relevant policy prescriptions that are needed to engender the country towards sustainable energy use, diversification of energy types from electricity to other renewable energy sources, such as solar, and reduction in over-dependency on the biomass energy sources, such as paraffin and wood, especially in rural and poor districts, are proposed.
Using household-level panel data and a coarsened exact matching procedure, this paper investigates the relationship between frequent electricity outages and the anthropometric outcomes of children. Specifically, we study the differences in the anthropometric outcomes of children aged under 5 in the Kyrgyz Republic. We find that children living in households with frequent outages have z-scores of height-for-age (HAZ) that are 0.37 units lower compared to the children living in similar households but without frequent outages. We also document that HAZ values of girls are more sensitive toward frequent outages, which indicates a possible presence of gender bias among Kyrgyz households.
This paper examines the significant effects of electricity load shedding on small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
in developing countries by using traditional literature review as the methodology. The study delves into the
various ways in which frequent power outages disrupt business operations, hinder economic growth, and impede
the development of these enterprises. The paper also discusses potential strategies and recommendations to
mitigate the negative consequences of electricity load shedding on SMEs.
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the causal complexity between ecosystems of doing business and living standards based on the theoretical model of the ecosystem of doing business proposed by Li (2019) and Du et al. (2020). By integrating ecological theory, transaction cost theory and institutional logics theory, this study explored effective ecosystems of doing business that achieve high living standards and explained the interpretive mechanisms behind different ecosystems of doing business. Moreover, this study also analyzed whether there were any necessary elements that lead to high living standards and discussed how the interactions between these elements influence carrying capacity and transaction costs from government logic and market logic, thus affecting living standards.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) were combined to analyze the data from the 2020 China City Statistical Yearbook, covering the main socioeconomic statistical data of cities at all levels in 2019.
Findings
This study found that no individual factor of the ecosystems of doing business was necessary to achieve high living standards, but the high level of human capital, innovation capacity, financial access and market demand play a significant role in achieving high living standards. Furthermore, two effective types of ecosystems of doing business lead to high living standards, namely, market dominance (government’s “invisible hand” or “nudging hand”) and government–market logic mutualism/symbiosis (government’s “helping hand”).
Originality/value
First, this work found that individual elements were not a necessary condition for high living standards, not only in kind but also in degree, complementing fsQCA with NCA, which indicates that environmental elements can be substituted by others. Second, this study considered the complex effects and explained the mechanisms behind different ecosystems of doing business, drawing on ecological theory, transaction cost theory and institutional logics theory from a configurational perspective. This study deepened the theories’ applications in the field of living standards and further discussed the elements interactions. Third, this study introduced configurational perspective and QCA into living standards research and adopted a mixed method that combines fsQCA and NCA to analyze the causal complexity between ecosystems of doing business and people’s living standards.
AC power systems have been designed to balance active power from the generation side, adopting technologies that offer three important properties: dispatch capability, ability to participate in frequency control, and large energy storage capacity. Such technologies have been displaced by variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, interfaced to the system via power electronic converters, which do not offer concurrently the three key properties of established equipment, thus introducing new dilemmas for planning and operation of power systems. Alternative schemes are being deployed to increase control of power flows and optimize energy storage capacity. Flexible loads and distributed energy storage devices, for instance, can be coordinated by energy management systems to provide power balancing mechanisms. Such advances, on the one hand, allow adequate power dispatch, balancing reserves, and storage capacity to be reached. On the other hand, they have major technical and economic impacts, affecting capital and operational expenditures, security of supply, and power system stability. Therefore, it is necessary to review and improve the tools and methods employed for planning and operation of power systems to accommodate these changes. This issue becomes more critical in autonomous grids, where a limited number of generators and storage devices are regularly available. This thesis is a collection of eight publications addressing this challenge. Together, they: 1) review the active power balance problem and the principles of frequency control and stability in ac power systems, 2) identify gaps in current modeling practices that can affect planning and operation of autonomous systems where high penetration of variable renewable energy sources exists, and 3) explore howfrequency control and stability constraints can be integrated into different power system optimization models. The main result is a set of frameworks that can be applied to optimization problems typically employed in planning and operation of autonomous systems. They are used for optimal sizing or scheduling of equipment and for ensuring stable and secure operation under dynamic uncertainty in different case studies of industrial oil and gas installations. Despite the focus in oil and gas applications, the main ideas and propositions can be generalized and applied to other autonomous systems, such as microgrids in islanded mode.
Load shedding is an unavoidable phenomenon not only in developing countries, but as well as developed countries of the world. Unavoidable due to various reasons among them: high demand for electrical power; effect of climate change; low substantive investment in electricity generation capacity; urbanization and rising incomes. Zambia is not exempted to such. The irony is that most Zambians based in urban areas use hydro energy for various purposes, and yet load shedding has continued to disrupt economic activities, hence this study was undertaken at Kabwata Market in Lusaka Zambia entitled, "load shedding and coping business mechanisms of SMEs: Case of female entrepreneurs in Lusaka's Kabwata Constituency". The specific objectives were to determine: The effect of load shedding on production, profit and workers; the effect of load shedding on socioeconomic life of female proprietors of SMEs; the coping business mechanisms and their effectiveness on the enterprises'. Being centred on stress to adapt to new environment caused by load shedding, the study was anchored on the theory of cybernetic theory by both Edwards and theory of stress by Lazarus and Folkman. The research, therefore, used a theory that integrates stress and how they coped up with it. The research employed descriptive design for both qualitative and quantitative data of a case study, where a total of 100 respondents were randomly selected and key informants were interviewed. A questionnaire and depth interviews for Key Informants were used to collect data. Descriptive analysis was used on quantitative data to generate statistics and qualitative data collected was analysed using thematic analysis to triangulate the findings. The research revealed that production, profit and workers and socioeconomic life were negatively affected as a result of loadshedding. Various coping mechanisms were identified. However, most of the coping mechanisms of most owners of those SMEs were less effective as compared to the use of energy power. The research concludes that load shedding had far more negative impacts on the female businesses of SMEs at Kabwata Market in Kabwata Constituency of Lusaka. Its impact was evidently portrayed on production, profit and workers and finally trickled down to the socioeconomic life of the female proprietors of SMEs. However, most of the coping mechanisms of most owners of those SMEs were found be less effective. Major recommendations were made among them: As long as SMEs have to survive, they have to find alternatives to maintain their production, profit and workers and their socioeconomic life by: adopting one or two of the coping strategies; or they need to plan for this unending phenomenon; make a small alternative investment for the coping mechanisms; for others SMEs shifting operating hours to night time in order to continue producing goods and services. The study recommends that government provides subsidies on alternative energy appliances; favourable policy on electric tariff rates for such businesses; continue to invest in electrical energy and research.
This paper employs a multi‐asset allocation framework to analyse the short‐term and long‐term desirability of listed infrastructure investments in an investor's portfolio. We employ 14 infrastructure indices encompassing six regions and eight sectors. The asset menu of the investor comprises traditional financial asset classes (stocks, bonds and bills) and infrastructure. We calculate the welfare losses due to ignoring the demand for infrastructure for various levels of risk aversion. In addition, we calculate the portfolio weights across various levels of risk aversion. Our results show that infrastructure is a desirable addition to the portfolio of traditional financial asset classes for both short‐run and long‐run investors.
The power sectors in most African countries face an enduring problem of poor utility performance - electricity utilities have failed to deliver adequate, reliable, and competitively priced electricity to support economic growth and improve the welfare of their populations. Despite more than two decades of power sector reforms, outcomes have been varied and often disappointing. Using a case study design, we explore the five key enduring power challenges: inadequate generation capacity; low access to electricity; unreliable supply; high cost of power, and poor performance of utilities in Uganda. The paper utilizes a powerful analytical approach that combines power sector reform theory and principal-agent theoretical lens to explore the experience of power sector reforms. Empirical findings show that the depth and extent of reform adoption have been deepest due to the leadership of the President and technocrats. The Umeme concession has achieved strong financial performance: viability and sustainability - largely underpinned by embedded contractual and regulatory incentives as well as strong governance systems buoyed by listing on the securities exchange which introduces a strong discipline around private capital. However, there has been disappointing progress in the affordability of tariffs, and access - one of the oversights in the design of the concession. One of our major conclusions is that concessions, if well designed to suit local country conditions and when well managed and consistently supported by all stakeholders can be successful in turning around utility performance. Overall, the Uganda concession has demonstrated the power of agency in delivering efficient services especially when a clear, well-articulated contractual relationship exists with principals and when proper incentives are allocated to cover existing risks.
Universal electrification may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for reliable electricity supply. Yet countries that have achieved universal electrification have made significant investments in building reliable electricity infrastructure relative to countries with low electrification rates. We examine the relationship between power outages and firm performance in four middle-income countries with universal electrification. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey on over 8,000 firms from 39 regions across Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Indonesia, we find no discernable negative association between outages and firm performance in two of three different specifications we employ. There is also some cross-country heterogeneity; we find that outages are associated with lower sales for firms in Tunisia in our main specification. However, these results for firms in Tunisia are not robust to other specifications with value added and total factor productivity as explained variable. Overall, our results are mixed, showing either a nonexistent or weak negative relationship between power outages and firm performance. These findings suggest that universal electrification is an important development goal, and while universally electrified countries may suffer some outages— which are fewer relative to those in low-electrification countries, firms in universally electrified countries are able to adapt to the remaining problems of reliability without incurring significant productivity losses.
This research examines assumptions about the relationship between e-governance and governance in 15 West African countries through an analysis of the 2016 and 2018 World Governance Indicators (WGI) and E-government Development Index (EDGI), proxies for governance and e-governance, respectively. A Pearson correlation analysis demonstrates a significant positive correlation between WGI and EDGI. When disaggregated, however, some dimensions of governance fail to correlate with e-governance. Notably, governance indicators correlate positively with each other thus reinforcing the critical role of traditional institutions of governance in achieving good governance. The study concludes that while ICTs are effective in advancing the goals of governments, they achieve better outcomes when integrated with established institutions and structures of governance. It advances an understanding of the concepts of development and governance by providing empirical evidence of the prospects and limitations of ICTs in the administrative practices of governments, especially in geopolitical contexts of limited resources.
Understanding the scale of energy poverty remains elusive. It is, however, a key metric in the global effort to eradicate poverty. The analysis presented in this paper provides insights into the true scale and impacts of unreliable electricity service provision. The paper introduces a simple and novel approach to quantifying the difference between electricity supply and demand, accounting for both met and unmet demand in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To assess unmet demand, generator use, reduced utilization due to unreliable electricity service, unrealized demand from unelectrified households, and the effect of tariff reductions are considered. We find that at 2018 prices, SSA (excluding South Africa) on-grid power networks had annual unmet demand of 8.83 TWh for on-grid users and 42.9 TWh with the inclusion of the off-grid sector. With a 50% reduction in tariff by country, the on-grid power sector would face a 21.46 TWh of unmet demand in the region, rising to 55.53 TWh with the inclusion of off-grid.
Public utilities in most African countries have failed to deliver adequate, reliable, and competitively priced electricity to support economic growth and improve the welfare of their populations. Despite more than two decades of power sector reforms, outcomes have been varied and often disappointing. A comparative case study analysis of electric utilities in three East African countries (Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda) explores the drivers of utility performance. Findings show that Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited performed the worst. Kenya Power performed better, while Umeme is the most financially sustainable of the three utilities. However, this ranking among the three utilities is inconsistent across all performance measures. PSP is widespread and brings in much-needed investments in generation and distribution. Countries that restructured their power systems have reduced conflicts of interest, enabled deeper management focus, improved transparency and accountability, and built institutional capacity that translates into improved utility performance. One of our major conclusions is that despite improved governance in market-oriented power markets, consistent regulatory decision-making for cost-reflective tariffs and adequate indexation is still necessary to guarantee financial viability and sustainability.
We test the hypothesis that the Internet is a useful technology for controlling corruption. In order to do so, we develop a novel identification strategy for Internet diffusion. Power disruptions damage digital equipment, which increases the user cost of IT capital, and thus lowers the speed of Internet diffusion. A natural phenomenon causing power disruptions is lightning activity, which makes lightning a viable instrument for Internet diffusion. Using ground-based lightning detection censors as well as global satellite data, we construct lightning density data for the contiguous U. S. states and a large cross section of countries. Empirically, lightning density is a strong instrument for Internet diffusion and our IV estimates suggest that the emergence of the Internet has served to reduce the extent of corruption across U.S. states and across the world.
Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous US states after 1990; before 1990 there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall and tornadoes) do not conform to this pattern. A viable explanation is that lightning influences IT diffusion. By causing voltage spikes and dips, a higher frequency of ground strikes leads to damaged digital equipment and thus higher IT user costs. Accordingly, the flash density (strikes per square km per year) should adversely affect the speed of IT diffusion. We find that lightning indeed seems to have slowed IT diffusion, conditional on standard controls. Hence, an increasing macroeconomic sensitivity to lightning may be due to the increasing importance of digital technologies for the growth process.
We develop a statistical framework to use satellite data on night lights to augment official income growth measures. For countries with poor national income accounts, the optimal estimate of growth is a composite with roughly equal weights on conventionally measured growth and growth predicted from lights. Our estimates differ from official data by up to three percentage points annually. Using lights, empirical analyses of growth need no longer use countries as the unit of analysis; we can measure growth for sub- and supranational regions. We show, for example, that coastal areas in sub-Saharan Africa are growing slower than the hinterland. (JEL E01, E23, O11, 047, 057)
This paper estimates the impact of electrification on employment growth by analyzing South Africa's mass roll-out of electricity to rural households. Using several new data sources and two different identification strategies (an instrumental variables strategy and a fixed effects approach), I find that electrification significantly raises female employment within five years. This new infrastructure appears to increase hours of work for men and women, while reducing female wages and increasing male earnings. Several pieces of evidence suggest that household electrification raises employment by releasing women from home production and enabling microenterprises. Migration behavior may also be affected. (JEL H54, L94, L98, O15, O18, R23)
The article models the transition from a hunter–gatherer economy to agricultural production, a crucial event in history which made possible the endogenous technological progress that ultimately led to the Industrial Revolution. We further present evidence showing that geographic and initial biogeographic conditions exerted decisive influence on the location and timing of transitions to sedentary agriculture, to complex social organization and, eventually, to modern industrial production. Evidence from a large cross-section of countries indicates that the effects of geography and biogeography on contemporary levels of economic development are remarkably strong, a result that contrasts with several recent studies where the effect runs solely through institutions.
Does economic development depend on geographic endowments like temperate instead of tropical location, the ecological conditions shaping diseases, or an environment good for grains or certain cash crops? Or do these endowments of tropics, germs, and crops affect economic development only through institutions or policies? We test the endowment, institution, and policy views against each other using cross country evidence. We find evidence that tropics, germs, and crops affect development through institutions. We find no evidence that tropics, germs, and crops affect country incomes directly other than through institutions, nor do we find any effect of policies on development once we control for institutions.
Per capita income in the richest countries of the world exceeds that in the poorest countries by more than a factor of 50. What explains these enormous differences? This paper returns to two old ideas in development economics and proposes that linkages and complementarity are at the heart of the explanation. First, linkages between firms through intermediate goods deliver a multiplier similar to the one associated with capital accumulation in a neoclassical growth model. Because the intermediate goods share of revenue is about 1/2, this multiplier is substantial. Second, just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, problems at any point in a production chain can reduce output substantially if inputs enter production in a complementary fashion. This paper builds a model to quantify these forces and shows that it can easily generate 50-fold aggregate income differences.
What explains the enormous differences in incomes across countries? This paper returns to two old ideas: linkages and complementarity. First, linkages between firms through intermediate goods deliver a multiplier similar to the one associated with capital in a neoclassical growth model. Because the intermediate goods share of output is about one-half, this multiplier is substantial. Second, just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, problems along a production chain can sharply reduce output under complementarity. These forces considerably amplify distortions to the allocation of resources, bringing us closer to understanding large income differences across countries.(JEL: D57, E23, O1O, O47)
I. Introduction, 65. — II. A model of long-run growth, 66. — III. Possible growth patterns, 68. — IV. Examples, 73. — V. Behavior
of interest and wage rates, 78. — VI. Extensions, 85. — VII. Qualifications, 91.
Before the global financial crisis of 2008, African economies were experiencing an unprecedented economic boom. While the unweighted GDP per capita growth was -0.2 percent in 1980-95, it jumped to 2.26 percent in 1996-05, and accelerated to 2.90 percent in 2006-07. Evidence suggests that the growth push observed after 1995 was driven by a combination of better policies 2 and the commodity boom. 3 Between early 2003 and mid-2008, oil prices climbed by 320 percent in dollar terms, and internationally traded food prices by 138 percent. But the boom is over (see table below). Prices across the board have fallen, giving up much of their earlier gains due to slower global GDP growth, increased supplies, and revised expectations. This sudden change marks the end of what has been the biggest commodity price boom of the past decades. With the commodity boom, investors were attracted to the region to take advantage of Africa's huge commodity potential. Between 2000 and 2006 foreign direct investments to the region almost tripled, and the bulk of these investments went to resource-rich countries. 4 As a consequence commodity production reached record highs, notably in oil and mineral sectors. Investments in new oil fields, copper, nickel, coal, gas, cobalt, uranium and other minerals are underway, and production capacity is expected to increase significantly in the near future – at a time when prices are depressed. In short, Africa is experiencing a dual commodity shock – a supply and a demand shock. And the commodity exporting sector is the main channel through which the global financial and economic crisis is hitting the region.
In an 80-country panel since the 1960s, the convergence rate for per capita GDP is around 1.7% per year. This “beta convergence” is conditional on an array of explanatory variables that hold constant countries’ long-run characteristics. The introduction of country fixed effects generates a much higher—and, I argue, misleading—convergence rate. In a much longer time frame—28 countries since 1870—estimation with country fixed effects is more appropriate, and the estimated convergence rate is around 2.4% per year. Combining the point estimates from the post-1960s and post-1870 panels suggests that the conditional convergence rate is between 1.7% and 2.4% per year, an interval that contains the “iron-law” rate of 2%. In the post-1960s panel, estimation without country fixed effects supports the modernization hypothesis, in the form of positive effects of per capita GDP and schooling on democracy and maintenance of law and order. The long-term panel with country fixed effects also supports modernization, in the sense of a positive effect of per capita GDP on the Polity indicator for democracy. A measure of dispersion—the standard deviation of the log of per capita GDP across 25 countries—is reasonably stable since 1870. This lack of “sigma convergence” is consistent with the presence of beta convergence. For 34 countries—including China and India—observed since 1896, the dispersion of per capita GDP declines since the late 1970s, especially when the country data are weighted by population. This sigma convergence reflects particularly the incorporation of China and India into the world market economy. For 29 countries since 1919, the levels and trends in cross-country dispersion are similar for consumption and GDP.
This chapter focuses on what has traditionally been considered as the “core” infrastructure sectors, which enhance the productivity of physical capital and land (mainly transportation and power). It discusses human infrastructure- or those services that raise the productivity of labor (health, education, nutrition). Public investment will be defined broadly to include all government spending in these sectors, rather than just capital expenditures as traditionally defined in official statistics. This is to ensure that the economic issues regarding recurrent as well as capital spending are covered in the chapter. The chapter emphasizes on recent policy debates without presenting the basic theoretical concepts underlying them in detail. The chapter on stresses common cross-sectoral themes regarding the pricing of and investment in infrastructure services in developing countries, rather than detailed issues within sectors.
Many social scientists believe that dumping long lists of explanatory variables into linear regression, probit, logit, and other statistical equations will successfully “control” for the effects of auxiliary factors. Encouraged by convenient software and ever more powerful computing, researchers also believe that this conventional approach gives the true explanatory variables the best chance to emerge. The present paper argues that these beliefs are false, and that without intensive data analysis, linear regression models are likely to be inaccurate. Instead, a quite different and less mechanical research methodology is needed, one that integrates contemporary powerful statistical methods with deep substantive knowledge and classic data—analytic techniques of creative engagement with the data.
The paper employs a heuristic comparative approach suggested by Ismail (2009) to search for evidence of Dutch disease in oil-rich countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). While these countries have benefitted from high international oil prices in recent years, they have also experienced relatively large real exchange rate appreciations, raising concerns regarding the presence of Dutch disease and casting doubts on their ability to achieve high growth and employment in the long run. To isolate from any dynamics related to the exchange rate regime, we focus on the 14 member countries that constitute the CFA franc zone. We separate them into net oil importers and net oil exporters and look at economic growth, the real exchange rate, and the agricultural and external sectors. Based on traditional models, our findings are broadly consistent with the presence of Dutch disease in the second group during the oil-price boom. Departing from these models yields mixed results, suggesting the need to employ a case-by-case approach.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to survey the empirical literature on the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth.
Design/methodology/approach
The four major hypotheses (growth, conservation, neutrality, and feedback) are briefly outlined with respect to the energy consumption‐growth nexus and corresponding policy implications of each. The survey focuses on country coverage, variables selected and model specification, econometric approaches, various methodological issues, and empirical results.
Findings
Though there is no clear consensus on the results for a specific country or groups of countries, directions for future research are discussed.
Research limitations/implications
The research surveyed may be dated by the time of publication given the ongoing research in this area.
Originality/value
This paper serves as a reference for researchers on the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth.
Does economic development depend on geographic endowments like temperate instead of tropical location, the ecological conditions shaping diseases, or an environment good for grains or certain cash crops? Or do these endowments of tropics, germs, and crops affect economic development only through institutions or policies? We test the endowment, institution, and policy views against each other using cross country evidence. We find evidence that tropics, germs, and crops affect development through institutions. We find no evidence that tropics, germs, and crops affect country incomes directly other than through institutions, nor do we find any effect of policies on development once we control for institutions.
This paper considers the relationship between aggregate productivity and stock and flow government-spending variables. The empirical results indicate that (i) the nonmilitary public capital stock is dramatically more important in determining productivity than is either the flow of nonmilitary or military spending, (ii) military capital bears little relation to productivity, and (iii) a ‘core’ infrastructure of streets, highways, airports, mass transit, sewers, water systems, etc. has most explanatory power for productivity. The paper also suggests an important role for the net public capital stock in the ‘productivity slowdown’ of the last fifteen years.
There is currently much debate about the effectiveness of foreign aid and about what kind of projects can engender economic development. There is skepticism about the ability of econometric analysis to resolve these issues or of development agencies to learn from their own experience. In response, there is increasing use in development economics of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to accumulate credible knowledge of what works, without overreliance on questionable theory or statistical methods. When RCTs are not possible, the proponents of these methods advocate quasi-randomization through instrumental variable (IV) techniques or natural experiments. I argue that many of these applications are unlikely to recover quantities that are useful for policy or understanding: two key issues are the misunderstanding of exogeneity and the handling of heterogeneity. I illustrate from the literature on aid and growth. Actual randomization faces similar problems as does quasi-randomization, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary. I argue that experiments have no special ability to produce more credible knowledge than other methods, and that actual experiments are frequently subject to practical problems that undermine any claims to statistical or epistemic superiority. I illustrate using prominent experiments in development and elsewhere. As with IV methods, RCT-based evaluation of projects, without guidance from an understanding of underlying mechanisms, is unlikely to lead to scientific progress in the understanding of economic development. I welcome recent trends in development experimentation away from the evaluation of projects and toward the evaluation of theoretical mechanisms. (JEL C21, F35, O19)
Has Africa finally reached the path to sustained growth? We find that much of the improvement in economic performance in Africa after 1995 is attributable to a substantial reduction in the frequency and severity of growth declines in all economies and an increase in growth accelerations in mineral-rich economies. We find, however, that growth accelerations have not been generally accompanied by improvements in variables often correlated with long run growth, such as investment. We also fail to find evidence that substantial policy and governance improvements were associated with the post-1995 accelerations. We conclude that Africa's growth recovery remains fragile. © The author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected]
/* */
This paper provides a survey of the recent progress in the literature of energy consumption-economic growth and electricity consumption-economic growth causality nexus. The survey highlights that most empirical studies focus on either testing the role of energy (electricity) in stimulating economic growth or examining the direction of causality between these two variables. Although the positive role of energy on growth has become a stylized fact, there are some methodological reservations about the results from these empirical studies. A general observation from these studies is that the literature produced conflicting results and there is no consensus neither on the existence nor on the direction of causality between energy consumption (electricity consumption) and economic growth. As a policy implication, to avoid from conflicting and unreliable results, the authors may use the autoregressive distributed lags bounds test, two-regime threshold co-integration models, panel data approach and multivariate models including new variables (such as: real gross fixed capital formation, labor force, carbon dioxide emissions, population, exchange rates, interest rates, etc.). Thus, the authors should focus more on the new approaches and perspectives rather than by employing usual methods based on a set of common variables for different countries and different intervals of time.
Almost by definition, the basis for development is infrastructure - whether services for human infrastructure (health, education, nutrition) or physical infrastructure (transport, energy, water). Although the infrastructure sectors are diverse, what they have in common is that public policy has had a great deal to do with how these services are provided and financed in almost all countries. The author reviews the recent literature on two key aspects of that involvement: investment and pricing. While the quality of the econometric evidence varies, recent literature reinforces the view that human and physical infrastructure are critical for economic growth and the reduction of poverty. And the state is recognized as playing a key role in ensuring the efficient, equitable allocation of resources for infrastructure. Despite many sound theoretical reasons for such public involvement, however, recent studies have shown that it leaves much to be desired in efficiency and equity. One symptom is underinvestment in key subsectors that have high economic returns and that help the poor the most, such as primary education and rural health clinics, in relation to more expensive interventions, such as tertiary education and urban hospitals. Another common malaise is the poor use of scarce resources, leading to low quality (students learning little) and reliability (irregular power and water flows), poor maintenance (dilapilated roads), and inappropriate input use (too many school adminstrators or health workers and not enough books or drugs in producing education health outcomes). Just as market failures necessitate government intervention in the infrastructure sectors, so government failures should be considered in deciding the depth and extent of that intervention. The literature has made some advances in diagnosing these problems in poor countries and proposing solutions. But information gaps remain, particularly in developing robust methodologies for: 1) making intersectoral comparisons across the wide range of infrastructure services; 2) crafting more diverse policies about the public-private balance in infrastructure investment, depending on the nature of"public goods"characteristics for various types of infrastructure services, or even across activities for the same service (for example, power transmission versus distribution); and 3) taking issues of political economy into account, such as the vested interests of those with large financial interests in infrastructure. The author also highlights public pricing as a policy initiative that has recently gotten much attention.After briefly reviewing the basic concepts of pricing, he focuses on the literature about pricing reform. Most commonly, the public sector is the main provider of infrastructure services, usually free or at subsidized prices. But the recent literature has aired a rethinking of the balance between public and private financing of infrastructure. The debate in this area is often heated. Health and education are traditionally provided free and some recent literature argues for positive prices, at least for higher tiers of service. The principle of public pricing has been more widely accepted in transport, energy, and to a lesser extent water, but often the levels are too low and do not provide the appropriate incentives for efficient and equitable use.
Per capita income in the richest countries of the world exceeds that in the poorest countries by more than a factor of 50. What explains these enormous differences? This paper returns to several old ideas in development economics and proposes that linkages, complementarity, and superstar effects are at the heart of the explanation. First, linkages between firms through intermediate goods deliver a multiplier similar to the one associated with capital accumulation in a neoclassical growth model. Because the intermediate goods' share of revenue is about 1/2, this multiplier is substantial. Second, just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, problems at any point in a production chain can reduce output substantially if inputs enter production in a complementary fashion. Finally, the high elasticity of substitution associated with final consumption delivers a superstar effect: GDP depends disproportionately on the highest levels of productivity in the economy. This paper builds a model with links across sectors, complementary inputs, and highly substitutable consumption, and shows that it can easily generate 50-fold aggregate income differences.
Measured rates of growth in real per capita income differ drastically depending on the data source. This phenomenon occurs largely because data sets differ in whether and how they adjust for changes in relative prices across countries. Replication of several recent studies of growth determinants shows that results are sensitive in important ways to the choice of data. Previous warnings against using data adjusted to increase cross-country comparability to study within-country patterns over time (growth rates) have been largely ignored at the cost of possibly contaminating the conclusions.
The prevalence of high lightning activity in Swaziland negatively affects the quality and reliability of power supply to the SEB Customers. More than 50% of power outages on transmission overhead lines are attributed to lightning. Owing to the good operating characteristics of metal oxide varistors lightning related power outages have been effectively optimized in many parts of the world utilizing zinc oxide transmission line surge arresters. A pilot project was undertaken to install transmission zinc oxide (ZnO) surge arresters in one of the most affected 66 kV lines in the country. Implementation took place in August 2003 (Spring) at the beginning of the lightning season. This paper presents an out line of how the project was conducted and its outcome
This article assesses the potential effects on least developed country (ldc) exports of duty-free access to the Quad markets on tariff peak items
Oil-price boom and real exchange rate appreciation: is there Dutch disease in the CEMAC? IMF Working Paper 11/268. International Monetary Fund Making Africa's Power Sector Sustainable. A Joint UNECA and UNEP Report Published within the Framework of UN-Energy
- Juan P Treviño
Treviño, Juan P., 2011. Oil-price boom and real exchange rate appreciation: is there Dutch disease in the CEMAC? IMF Working Paper 11/268. International Monetary Fund. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2007. Making Africa's Power Sector Sustainable. A Joint UNECA and UNEP Report Published within the Framework of UN-Energy/Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. World Bank, 2008. Africa development indicators 2007. International Bank for Recon-struction and Development.
Convergence and modernization revisited. NBER Working Paper No. 18295 On the use of LIS/OTD flash density in electric utility reliability analysis
- Robert J Barro
Barro, Robert J., 2012. Convergence and modernization revisited. NBER Working Paper No. 18295. Chisholm, William, Cummins, Kenneth, 2006. On the use of LIS/OTD flash density in electric utility reliability analysis. Proceedings of the LIS International Workshop, MSFC, Huntsville, AL. Sept.
Lightning performance improvement of the Swaziland electricity board transmission system (66 kV & 132 kV lines)-results of the pilot project. Power Engineering Society Inaugural Conference and Exposition in Africa
- Luke Mswane
- C T Gaunt
Mswane, Luke, Gaunt, C.T., 2005. Lightning performance improvement of the Swaziland
electricity board transmission system (66 kV & 132 kV lines)-results of the pilot
project. Power Engineering Society Inaugural Conference and Exposition in Africa
2005 IEEE, pp. 364-370.
Correlating PQ disturbances with lightning strikes
- Mark Mcgragnaghan
- Gunther
- Erich
- Theo Laughner
McGragnaghan, Mark, Gunther, Erich, Laughner, Theo, 2002. Correlating PQ disturbances with lightning strikes. Power Qual. Mag. 67, 8-13.
Underpowered: the state of the power sector in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Anton Eberhard
- Foster
- Vivien
- Cecilia Briceño-Garmendia
- Ouedraogo
- Fatimata
- Camos
- Daniel
- Maria Shkaratan
Eberhard, Anton, Foster, Vivien, Briceño-Garmendia, Cecilia, Ouedraogo, Fatimata,
Camos, Daniel, Shkaratan, Maria, 2008. Underpowered: the state of the power
sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. AICD Background Paper 6, World Bank.
On the Use of LIS/OTD Flash Density in Electric Utility Reliability Analysis
- W Chisholm
- K Cummins
Chisholm, W., Cummins, K., 2006. On the Use of LIS/OTD Flash Density in Electric Utility
Reliability Analysis. Proceedings of the LIS International Workshop, MSFC, Huntsville, AL.
Sept.
Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa
- Vernon Henderson
- Storeygard
- Adam
- David Weil
Henderson, Vernon, Storeygard, Adam, Weil, David, 2012. Measuring economic growth
from outer space. Am. Econ. Rev. 102, 994-1028.
International Monetary Fund, 2008. Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa.
April, Washington D.C.
Underpowered: The State of the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa
- A Eberhard
- V Foster
- C Briceño-Garmendia
- F Ouedraogo
- D Camos
- M Shkaratan
Eberhard, A., Foster, V., Briceño-Garmendia, C., Ouedraogo, F., Camos, D., Shkaratan, M.,
2008. Underpowered: The State of the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. AICD Background
Paper 6, World Bank
Correlating PQ disturbances with lightning strikes
- M Mcgragnaghan
- E Gunther
- T Laughner
McGragnaghan, M., Gunther, E., Laughner, T., 2002. Correlating PQ disturbances with lightning
strikes. Power Quality Magazine 67, 8-13