This book presents new research on solar mini-grids and the ways they can be designed and implemented to provide equitable and affordable electricity access, while ensuring economic sustainability and replication.Drawing on a detailed analysis of solar mini-grid projects in Senegal, the book provides invaluable insights into energy provision and accessibility which are highly relevant to Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Global South more generally. Importantly, the book situates mini-gr...

In recognition of the fact that billions of people in the developing world do not have access to clean energies, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative to achieve universal energy access by 2030. Although electricity grid extension remains the most prevalent way of providing access, it is now recognized that the central grid is unlikely to reach many remote areas in the near future. At the same time, individual solutions like solar home systems tend to provid...

Countries worldwide are struggling to imitate the industrial prowess of the East Asian pacesetters, but growth accelerations have proven remarkably transient. Building a portfolio of tradable goods and services and steadily raising the level of investment in these activities, has generally defied the best policy efforts - in particular, bringing investment ratios on par with East Asian averages has presented the greatest challenge. Hence the search is on for growth recipes not so tightly boun...

Southeast Asian tiger economies feel threatened by competition from other countries and worry that their growth momentum might be flagging. Even though their growth rates are above the average for the world and for developing countries, they fall short of yesterday's economic performance. The underlying worry is that they presage the beginning of a downward trend, the harbingers of which are lower rates of investment, persistently low rates of total factor productivity and low levels of innov...

Entrepreneurs have long been drivers of innovation in developed countries. They start companies and create new industries that keep economies strong and prosperous. Today, however, in developing nations such as China, state-controlled economies are building robust industries at stunning speed and siphoning off jobs from the West. How can entrepreneurs function in the face of this challenge? Can they continue to create economic value in a globalized business environment? This book addresses...

This brilliantly original book dismantles the underlying assumptions that drive the decisions made by companies and governments throughout the world, to show that our shared narrative of the global economy is deeply flawed. If left unexamined, they will lead corporations and countries astray, with dire consequences for us all.For the past fifty years or so, the global economy has been run on three big assumptions: that globalization will continue to spread, that trade is the engine...

Manufacturing’s central role in global innovationCompanies compete on the decisions they make. For years-even decades-in response to intensifying global competition, companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those choices: in many cases, once manufacturing capabilities go away, so does much of the ability to innovate and compete. Manufacturing, it turns out, really ...

How can society quickly convert to renewable energy? Can worldwide energy needs ever be met through 100% renewable sources? The answers to these questions rest largely on the perception of choice in the energy arena. It is of pivotal importance that engineers, researchers and policymakers understand what choices are available, and reasonable, when considering the design and deployment of new energy systems. The mission of this new book, written by one of the world's foremost experts in ren...

This report was prepared byGareth Davies and Christian Romig, John McShane and John Perkins, AFRY Management Consulting andZHAO Yongqiang, LIU Jian and HAN Xue, Energy Research Institute of National Reform and Development CommissionLEGAL DISCLAIMERThe information and views set out in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union, or ECECP. Neither the European Union nor ECECP...

An argument for a major federal program to stimulate innovation in energy technology and a proposal for a policy approach to implement it.America is addicted to fossil fuels, and the environmental and geopolitical costs are mounting. A public-private program—at an expanded scale—to stimulate innovation in energy policy seems essential. In Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution, Charles Weiss and William Bonvillian make the case for just such a program...

To solve the climate crisis, the world must make a wholesale shift to renewable energy technologies. With surging growth in emerging markets, this transformation takes on even greater urgency. The challenges - and opportunities - are immense.Selling Solar considers how such a shift might happen. Focusing on the case of solar photovoltaics, it shows how, at the start of the 21st century, this promising technology began to diffuse rapidly in select emerging markets, after years of st...

As the greatest coal-producing and consuming nation in the world, China would seem an unlikely haven for wind power. Yet the country now boasts a world-class industry that promises to make low-carbon technology more affordable and available to all. Conducting an empirical study of China's remarkable transition and the possibility of replicating their model elsewhere, Joanna I. Lewis adds greater depth to a theoretical understanding of China's technological innovation systems and its curren...