1,721,022 research outputs found
Electricity access and rural development: Review of complex socio-economic dynamics and causal diagrams for more appropriate energy modelling
Full text linkThe causal relationships between electrification and development of poor, rural communities are complex and contextual. The existing literature focuses mainly on the impact of rural electrification and electricity use on local socio-economic development, while the reverse feedbacks of various social and economic changes on electricity demand and supply have not been fully characterized. Most electricity access impact assessments assume linear, one-way effects and linear growth in electricity demand. However, the projections rarely match the reality, creating challenges for rural utilities. From a modelling perspective, the lack of attention to dynamic complexities of the electricity-development nexus prevents the appropriate modelling of electricity demand over time and, hence, informed planning for and sizing of power plants. With the goal to improve modelling of the electricity-development nexus, we undertake a comprehensive review and extensive analysis of the peer-reviewed literature on electricity access and its impact on rural socio-economic development, and vice versa. We characterize and describe the nexus between electricity access and development through graphical casual diagrams that allow us to capture, visualise and discuss the complexity and feedback loops. Based on this, we suggest guidelines for developing appropriate models able to include and simulate such complexities. Our analysis confirms that electricity use is interconnected through complex casual relations with multiple dimensions of socio-economic development, viz. income generating activities, market production and revenues, household economy, local health and population, education, and habits and social networks. The casual diagrams can be seen as a first step of the conceptualization phase of model building, which aims at describing and understanding the structure of a system. The presence of multiple uncertain parameters and complex diffusion mechanisms that describe the complex system under analysis suggests that systems-dynamic simulations can allow modelling such complex and dynamic relations, as well as dealing with the high uncertainties at stake, especially when coupled with stochastic approaches
Changing energy geographies: The political effects of a small-scale electrification project
Full text linkThis article contributes theoretically and empirically to our understanding about how a transition to ‘modern and sustainable energy for all’ may reconfigure the life of citizens who live ‘outside the grid’ in rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. My inquiry is inspired by the question posed by James Ferguson and Tania Murray Li: what do development schemes do? I analyse a renewable energy pilot project in Tanzania that was implemented by an NGO, which eventually failed to continue its service delivery but still produced important effects. Conceptually, I build on and extend previous arguments about how development projects produce depoliticizing effects, have ambiguous effects, and reproduce unequal relations of power. Building on feminist and sociotechnical relational approaches to power, I identify when and where in the encounter between energy project and local community that these, and other, effects emerge. Case study data was collected by qualitative methodology, and consists of project documentation, observation, and interviews with actors involved. The study shows how particular material, social, emotional, and economic effects emerged from the encounter between the project and local society. Feedback between technical problems, financial difficulties, and social tensions created a downward spiral resulting in system failure. It had negative effects on the credibility of actors and on trust relations. I argue that asking what decentralized electrification schemes actually ‘do’ can provide insight relevant to energy geography, as the focus on effects reveals the sociotechnical and political relations through which electricity becomes possible and how it may reconfigure local places. The case study shows why and how a small-scale, renewable energy project only temporarily repositioned actors and places, produced ambiguous effects, and maintained unequal power relations
System dynamics modelling for long-term electricity demand projections in rural areas of developing countries : the case study of Ikondo village
No full textLAUREA MAGISTRALEI sistemi di generazione distribuita ricoprono un ruolo fondamentale nell’accesso all’energia in zone rurali. Il beneficio di tali tecnologie è garantito esclusivamente se nella procedura di dimensionamento è contemplata anche una crescita della domanda di consumi di elettricità. Il lavoro presentato vuole portare all’attenzione dei lettori l’importanza dei fenomeni che soggiacciono al nesso elettricità-sviluppo. Emerge, da un’attenta analisi di letteratura, che il nesso energia-sviluppo è una relazione ricorsiva tra il consumo di elettricità e altre dinamiche del villaggio. La teoria System Dynamics è stata selezionata per descrivere la realtà complessa e multidisciplinare che sta dietro al consumo di elettricità e l’evolversi di questo nel lungo periodo. Il primo passo consiste nella rappresentazione delle dinamiche nella forma di causal loops. La struttura stock-and-flow è sviluppata a partire dalla descrizione dei causal loops. La struttura generale del modello è data dai risultati dell’analisi di letteratura. Al fine di caratterizzare il modello, è considerato il caso studio del villaggio di Ikondo, Tanzania. Partendo dalla raccolta dati sul campo, i causal loops sono stati revisionati e la formulazione stock-and-flow è stata arricchita dalle interviste alle persone locali. Il modello è composto da due livelli: una struttura generale potenzialmente valida per una larga parte di contesti rurali e una definizione dei parametri di input che è fortemente legata al contesto di applicazione. La calibrazione relativa al caso di Ikondo è operata minimizzando i residui tra simulazioni e i dati reali dato un range di variabilità ai parametri di modello. I risultati delle simulazioni sono i valori delle stesse costanti per cui è possibile dare indicazioni per ulteriori applicazioni per ci la stima dei parametri è difficile da valutare. Per mezzo di un’analisi di sensitività, si investigano quali parametri sono i più influenti e quali richiedono più accuratezza nella raccolta dati. Gli errori relativi alla curva di consumo di elettricità della comunità sono riportati in funzione della perturbazione dei parametri di calibrazione.Distributed energy systems play a key role in access to electricity in rural areas. The benefit of such technologies is guaranteed only if a proper sizing process if followed considering also a long-term forecast of the electricity demand. The here presented work is expected to bring to the attention of the readers the importance of the phenomena that underlie the electricity-development nexus. It stands out, from an in-depth literature analysis, that the nexus is a recursive linkage between electricity usage and the other village dynamics. System Dynamics Theory is the selected methodology to capture the multidisciplinary and complex reality behind the long-term electricity consumption. The first step is representing the dynamics in form of the causal loops. The stock-and-flow structure is developed starting from the causal loops description. The general framework of the model is given by the results of the review. In order to characterize the model, it is considered the case study of Ikondo village, Tanzania. Starting from the data collected on the field, the causal loops have been revised and the stock-and-flow formulation have been enriched by the interviews of local people. The model can be decomposed in two levels: a general structure potentially valid to a wide portion of rural contexts while the parameter definition part is strongly context-specific. The calibration of the model, related to the case study of Ikondo, is performed minimizing the residuals between the simulated behaviours and the real data given range constraints to which the model parameters are subjected to. The results of the model are the values of the model parameters that give indications for further applications in which the parameters estimation is hard to assess. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to understand which the most influent parameters are and what kind of constants needs more accuracy during data collection. Relative errors related to the community electricity consumption are reported in relation to the perturbation of the calibration parameters
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Towards a conceptualization of power in energy transitions
Full text linkThe field of sustainability transitions has recently benefitted from efforts by multiple scholars at better conceptualizing power and politics, and integrating insights from other fields. This article argues for an understanding of power as relational, productive, contingent and situated. I conceptualize power to the aim of understanding and explaining how and where power relations become de/stabilized in energy transitions in poor rural communities. An understanding of power as a relational capacity to act is integrated with a sociotechnical and relational understanding of constitutive power, which enables us to explore the co-production of social relations, technology and nature. The resulting conceptualization is applied to a case of mini-hydropower electrification in Tanzania. I find that electrification simultaneously reinforces social inequality and enhances social mobility. I identify material, symbolic and discursive domains that work as sources of de/stabilization of social hierarchies, producing effects on the system configuration and relations of class and gender
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Towards a conceptualization of power and micro-level politics in energy transitions
No full textIn rich as well as in poor countries, the energy sectors are in transition from strongly centralised governance and production systems to increasing diversity in governance arrangements and modes of production. In Tanzania, barely 7% of the rural inhabitants have access to electricity services from the national grid. In many rural communities, local generation and micro-grid distribution based on renewable energy sources is being introduced for the first time, complementing the existing use of kerosene, candles, batteries and small diesel generators. This paper explores decentralized rural electrification (RE) processes in Tanzania from a socio-technical system perspective. The aim is to: (1) develop conceptual tools for studying relations of power in energy transitions, and (2) to use these to explain the interplay between power relations and sociotechnical change in a case of decentralized rural electrification in Tanzania. Previous research shows that electrification processes primarily benefit the better-off minority and, thus, serve to reproduce existing social hierarchies. Here, RE processes are conceptualized as fundamentally political processes in which struggles for control and access over various resources are taking place. They are also processes where the productive and creative abilities of humans can be enhanced and people can work together for mutual benefit. In order to make analytical sense of empirical observations in a case study in Tanzania, I undertake an explorative analysis of the multiple workings of power in RE processes.Starting from a review of innovation system literature, I conclude that existing conceptual frameworks do not allow me to fully capture the political dimensions of RE, which leads to the argument that the theoretical conceptualizations of (and not just the empirical attention to) political dimensions of energy transitions are still at an early stage. Engagements with the rich philosophical debate on human power can assist us in improving the clarity and precision of analysis and use of concepts. The paper takes a few tentative steps in that direction by integrating and developing theories on human power in relation to electrification and applying these to a case of small-scale hydropower development. The case study is based on data collected in Tanzania in 2012 and 2013, during a period of around three months. The material includes a total of 104 interviews with actors in the geographical area of the hydropower plant, participant observation and document analysis. The findings indicate that income gaps have grown as a consequence of larger economic benefits for the connected households. There is a sense of exclusion among villagers who cannot afford to connect to the grid. However, the introduction of electricity also has destabilized existing social relations and created a moment of expanding space for individual and collective agency in tension with existing societal structures, manifesting in women and men improving their social positions and women breaking traditional gender roles. Arguably, the tensions between agency and structure, between human capacity and system behaviours beyond the control of individual actors make electrification processes highly interesting and important objects of study. They can provide insights into the social and material base of political economies, and relationships between human and non-human system elements in processes of co-evolution between system and context. The use of socio-technical approaches in the Tanzanian context, and the engagement with theories of human power, open up to new areas of research and theoretical development in the field of energy transitions
Drivers and Barriers to Successful Rural Electrification in Tanzania. Report from Stakeholder Workshop held in Dar es Salaam, 23rd of April 2012 [Elektronisk resurs]
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