Determinants of renewable energy technological innovation in China under CO2 emissions constraint.

Renewable energy is not only an efficient way to ensure energy independence and security but also supports the transition to a low carbon economy and society. The progress of renewable energy technological innovation is an important factor that influences the development of renewable energy. An in-depth analysis of the driving factors that influence this progress is crucial to China's energy transition. Based on Chinese provincial data over 2000-2015 and panel data models, this paper regards the CO2 emissions as climate change and explores the response of renewable energy technological innovation to intensive CO2 emissions. We also analyze the effect of the driving factors such as energy price and R&D investment on this innovation process. The main conclusions drawn are: (1) There are significant differences in technological innovation levels across China's provinces. (2) We observe that the intensive CO2 emissions have promoted renewable energy technological innovation level, meaning that innovation process responds actively to climate changes. (3) R&D investment from government and enterprise both are conducive for promoting the innovation level. (4) Energy price has an insignificant effect on innovation in renewable energy technologies and we attribute this to the unreasonable energy price mechanism. This paper provides clear evidence for understanding the role of innovation on climate change.

Unravelling the nexus between energy prices and exchange rate in Malaysia: Fresh insights from a non-linear perspective using threshold cointegration analysis.

This paper proposes a nonlinear threshold cointegration framework to study how energy prices affect Malaysia's nominal exchange rate, considering the money supply, income, and interest rate. The study employs a threshold cointegration approach utilizing threshold autoregressive and momentum threshold autoregressive models. The momentum threshold vector error correction model determines the short-run adjustment of exchange rate deviation from the long-run equilibrium level. The findings reveal that the nonlinear adjustment process to capture the short-run deviation in the long-run equilibrium path is primarily influenced by energy prices, money supply, and interest rates. These results highlight the importance of considering the impact of energy prices on exchange rate policies when formulating and implementing economic policies in Malaysia. The findings can also be valuable for decision-makers to comprehend the future dynamics of exchange rates and make well-informed decisions.

Examination of the transmission mechanism of energy prices influencing carbon prices: an analysis of mediating effects based on demand heterogeneity.

Carbon prices are important for promoting a low-carbon transformation of the economy. The fluctuation of energy prices affects carbon prices through supply and demand chains, thus affecting the achievement of emission reduction targets through carbon pricing tools. Based on daily time series data, a mediating effect model is constructed to study the impact of energy prices on carbon prices. We analyze how energy prices impact carbon prices using four different transmission paths and then test the resulting differences. The main findings are as follows. First, an increase in energy prices significantly negatively affects carbon prices through economic fluctuation, investment demand, speculative demand, and transaction demand. Second, energy price fluctuations mainly affect carbon emission prices through economic fluctuations. The impacts of the remaining transmission paths are in the order of speculative demand, investment demand, and transaction demand. This paper provides theoretical and practical support for reasonably responding to energy price fluctuations and forming effective carbon prices to address climate change.

Survey data on energy-saving policies, energy price, crisis and household energy-saving behavior.

The state policies and energy prices are evaluated to play a crucial role in the context of crises occurring in each country. The authors collected data on state policies and energy prices concerning energy-saving behavior during crises, with a particular focus on the Covid-19 crisis. The data was gathered from 1216 respondents, who are households. The data's reliability was assessed using Smart-PLS software. The data will provide research ideas related to state policies, energy prices, and energy-saving behavior associated with crises similar to Covid-19.

Energy financing, energy projects retrofit and energy poverty: a scenario-analysis approach for energy project cost estimation and energy price determination.

The research aims to determine the nexus of energy projects retrofit and poverty under two scenarios: energy project cost estimation and energy price determination. Households in rural areas of northern China are now required to switch from coal to cleaner heating options, including natural gas and electricity, as part of a government-led clean heating initiative. This initiative significantly increased the heating expense for participating homes, even when substantial subsidies were applied. We surveyed a large number of northern Chinese households to learn more about the rise in energy insecurity that has been attributed to government action. Our research shows that switching to electricity and gas from coal considerably worsens energy poverty in several ways, whereas switching to clean coal improves the situation. According to an econometric study, changes in energy poverty reveal heterogeneity in several ways. There is little change in Beijing, while the considerably less developed province of Hebei to the north sees a 75% rise. Energy poverty is more common in families with poorer incomes, lower levels of education, and smaller sizes. People who lack resources to insulate their homes will feel the effects more acutely. These results support the idea that low-income families would suffer disproportionately under a "one policy for all" mandate. For policymakers working on energy transition strategies for a low-carbon economy, it highlights the need to consider the distributional impact.

Is pass-through of the exchange rate to restaurant and hotel prices asymmetric in the US? Role of monetary policy uncertainty.

This study examines the exchange rate pass-through to the United States (US) restaurant and hotel prices by incorporating the effect of monetary policy uncertainty over the period 2001:M12 to 2019:M01. Using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model, empirical evidence indicates asymmetric  pass-through of exchange rate and monetary policy uncertainty. Moreover, a stronger pass-through effect is observed during depreciation and a negative shock in monetary policy uncertainty, corroborating asymmetric pass-through predictions. Our results further show that a positive shock in energy prices leads to an increase in restaurant and hotel prices. Furthermore, asymmetric causality indicates that a positive shock in the exchange rate causes a positive shock to restaurant and hotel prices. We found feedback causal effects between positive and negative shocks in monetary policy uncertainty and positive and negative shocks in the exchange rate. Additionally, we detected a one-way asymmetric causality, flowing from a positive (negative) shock to a positive (negative) shock in energy prices. Therefore, these findings provide insights for policymakers to achieve low and stable prices in the US restaurant and hotel industry through sound monetary policy formulations.

Asymmetric macroeconomic determinants of energy intensity in China: does economic development matter?

Previously, several studies have tried to analyze the various determinants of energy intensity for different countries and regions. However, none of the studies have focused on the asymmetric determinants of energy intensity in the context of China. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to investigate the asymmetric determinants of energy intensity in China. We have gathered data for China over the period 1985-2019 and applied linear and non-linear ARDL models. In the linear model, only energy prices reduce the energy intensity in the long run. Moreover, the long-run effects of both energy prices and economic development are asymmetric; however, positive changes in both variables help to reduce energy intensity. Clearly, the results are asymmetric in nature; hence, the policymakers should consider both positive and negative shocks in energy prices and economic development while making any policy with regard to lowering energy intensity.

How do energy prices affect economic environment under different price regulation policies?

Energy is an essential factor for the survival of industries. Energy can affect the industrial productivity related to the economic activities, and the fluctuation of energy price will influence the final energy consumption level. In this paper, we use the input-output price model to study the relationship between the fluctuation of energy price and the change of economic level under different price control scenarios. The results show that the energy price fluctuation has high conduction efficiency on the general price index in the non-price-regulated scenario. Comparing the simulation results obtained from different years, this paper found that the magnitude of price conduction effect is closely related to the proportion of energy consumption. When the energy price is regulated by the government, the conduction effect of the energy price is limited. The policy effectiveness of regulation is related to the extent of price volatility of energy sources located at the upstream of the production chain of the regulated object. Through the SVAR model, this paper also found that the conduction effect of energy price fluctuation has obvious hysteresis, and the lag period of conduction effect on PPI is longer than that on CPI.

The effects of energy price, spatial spillover of CO2 emissions, and economic freedom on CO2 emissions in Europe: a spatial econometrics approach.

Since the European Union (EU)'s current goal of making its continent the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050, the EU will need to set a path for new policies in the areas of Europe's economy, energy consumption, and agriculture. Thus, this paper analyzes the marginal impact of energy price and economic freedom on Europe's CO2 emissions grounded on the extended Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology ecology (STIRPAT) model together with the spatial econometric models. The results indicate the existence of spatial spillover effect of CO2 emissions among some countries in Europe. The Hausman test was also performed to select the best model between the random effects and the fixed effects. The findings suggest that increasing both economic freedom and energy price in a local country turns to reduce the country's own CO2 emissions and also reduces the emissions of its adjacent countries. Comparing the direct effect of economic freedom and energy price to that of the SDM fixed effect, a feedback of 12.77% and 23.53% of the direct effect was observed, respectively. The results also indicated that the turning point of economic freedom and economic growth was 6.714 and thus 9.083. Overall, the study spotlighted some policy suggestions for the energy market for the European commission in reducing the emissions of CO2.

An energy system optimization model accounting for the interrelations of multiple stochastic energy prices.

The variation of and the interrelation between different energy markets significantly affect the competitiveness of various energy technologies, therefore complicate the decision-making problem for a complex energy system consisting of multiple competing technologies, especially in a long-term time frame. The interrelations between these markets have not been accounted for in the existing energy system modelling efforts, leading to a distortion of understanding of the market impact on the technological choices and operations in the real world. This study investigates the strategic and operational decision-making problem for such an energy system characterized by three competing technologies from crude oil, natural gas, and coal. A stochastic programming model is constructed by incorporating multiple volatile energy prices interrelated with each other. Oil price is modelled by the mean-reverting Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and serves as the exogenous variable in the ARIMAX models for natural gas and downstream plastic prices. The K-means clustering method is employed to extract a handful of distinctive patterns from a large number of simulated price projections to enhance the computing efficiency without losing retaining critical information and insights from the price co-movement. The model results suggest that the high volatility of the energy market weakens the possibility of selecting the corresponding technology. The oil-based route, for example, gradually loses its market share to the coal approach, attributed to a higher volatile oil market. The proposed method is applicable to other problems of the same kind with high-dimensional stochastic variables. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10479-021-04229-3.

The environmental and energy policies to enable sustainable consumption and production in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Sustainable consumption and production mean that economic development should satisfy the needs of the current population without jeopardizing the lives of future generations. Relying on the hydrocarbon sector generates a significant trade-off between economic development and the environment. The GCC governments have an essential role in this process and can affect the outcomes. The policies that have been implemented in the GCC countries to protect the environment and empower sustainable consumption and production were explored and identified. Moreover, the success of these policies in achieving their goals was assessed. The analytical approach and utilizing the previous studies' findings were used by the current study. This study finds that the institutional actions of the Gulf countries are not enough to generate sustainable consumption and production. These countries remain strongly affected by the hydrocarbon sector, and the diversification achievements are weak. Further, the energy price reforms have many problems as a tool to enhance sustainable consumption and production. Additionally, these countries work under the concept of entrepreneurial state capitalist. The government controls all the sectors, including the private sector, to secure the regime. The policy implication of the current paper is that the GCC countries should recover the process of diversifying the economy, enhancing the movements toward the free market economy, and adopting an efficient energy-environmental policy by enhancing more concrete actions toward new technologies. It includes shifting to renewable energy, i.e., solar and wind.

Exploring the contribution of energy price to carbon emissions in African countries.

The increasing level of greenhouse gas carbon emission currently exacerbates the devastating effect of global warming on the Earth's ecosystem. Energy usage is one of the most important determinants that is increasing the amount of carbon gases being released. Simultaneously, the level of energy usage is derived by the price, and therefore, this study examines the contribution of energy price to carbon gas emissions in thirteen African nations for the period spanning 1990 to 2017. It does this by utilising the cross-sectional dependence (CD), augmented mean group (AMG) and pooled mean group (PMG) panel modelling methods. The findings of the AMG model suggest that a 1% increase in energy price leads to a 0.02% decrease in carbon emission. The results further reveal that a 1% increase in energy intensity and technological innovation leads to 0.04% and 3.65% increase in carbon emission, respectively, in the selected African countries. Findings will help policymakers to implement effective energy price policies to reduce carbon emissions and achieve sustainable development goals especially in the emerging economies of Africa.

Determinants of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in hydroelectric countries.

In the past decades, renewable energy consumption has grown considerably because of environmental degradation caused by non-renewable energy consumption. This research aims to find the causal link between renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, human capital, and non-renewable energy price for the 53 most renewable energy-consuming countries worldwide (hydroelectric) during the period 1990-2017. We use data collected from the World Bank ( http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators , 2018) and Statistical Review of World Energy ( https://www.bp.com/ , 2018). We test simultaneously two types of regressions in order to measure the degree of elasticity of the two types of energy by using econometric techniques for panel data. The results of the GLS models indicate that human capital has a stronger significant effect on renewable energy consumption at the global level, in the middle high-income countries and low-middle income countries, compared with non-renewable energy consumption. Besides, at the global level, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the non-renewable energy price and the two types of energy consumption. There is a long-run consumption of both types of energy. On the other hand, the one-way relationship between human capital and non-renewable energy price and renewable energy consumption is stronger than the relationship with non-renewable energy consumption. The policy implications derived from this study should be designed to promote human capital development in order to promote renewable energy consumption and increase the investment in renewable energy sources to guarantee their access to lower prices that reduce non-renewable energy consumption.

Asymmetric dependence structures between emission allowances and energy markets: new evidence from China's emissions trading scheme pilots.

This article investigates the dependence structure between China's emissions allowances and energy (coal, oil, and natural gas) markets using autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and mixed Copula functions. The dependence structures between China's eight emissions allowances and energy markets demonstrate significant regional heterogeneity; an increase (decrease) in coal, crude oil, and natural gas prices induces an increase (decrease) in eight regional emissions allowance prices and confirms regional divergence and market heterogeneity. The Beijing, Guangdong, Hubei, and Chongqing emissions allowances and coal markets demonstrate significant left-tail dependence structures, while the Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen, and Fujian emissions allowances and coal markets demonstrate complex mixed dependence structures. Seven of China's emissions allowances and crude oil markets confirm the existence of complex asymmetric dependence structures, except for the symmetric dependence structure between the Fujian emissions allowances and crude oil markets. However, eight of China's emissions allowances and natural gas markets demonstrate complex asymmetric dependence structures.

The impact of energy price on CO2 emissions in China: A spatial econometric analysis.

Excessive greenhouse gas emissions pose a global environmental concern. This paper examines the impact of energy price on China's CO2 emissions based on an extended STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) structural human ecology model. We utilize Chinese provincial data from 2002 to 2016 and apply the spatial panel data techniques to explicitly consider spatial correlations and spillover effects between observations. Our results show that energy price has a significant negative impact on China's CO2 emissions after controlling for other economic and energy market factors and spatial correlations of these variables. We identify a significant direct impact of the focal province's price change on CO2 emissions and an indirect effect exerted by energy price changes in adjacent provinces. Such spatial spillover effects are also observed in other determinants identified in the extended STIRPAT model. We also document a path dependent pattern in China's provincial CO2 emissions with last period CO2 emissions influencing the current CO2 emission levels. Our results show that the negative impact of energy price on CO2 emissions remains qualitatively the same after incorporating the influence of previous period CO2 emissions. Our results are also robust to the inclusion of lagged energy price measures, alternative spatial economic models, and alternative spatial weight matrices. Overall, our paper highlights the role of energy market in curbing CO2 emissions and promoting sustainable economic development.

Asymmetric effects of industrial energy prices on carbon productivity.

Energy price is a key factor in reducing carbon emissions. This paper assesses the relationship between energy prices and carbon emissions from the industrial sector in China. Using panel data covering 31 industrial sectors for the period 2003 to 2015, we calculate the industrial energy price index and then estimate the effects of sector-level energy prices on carbon emissions based on a panel smooth transition regression model. The results show that the nexus between industrial energy prices and carbon emissions is nonlinear overall, and energy prices have a significantly negative effect on carbon emissions, while this negative effect gradually weakens with an increase in energy prices. Moreover, the negative effect of energy prices on carbon emissions is more significant in energy-intensive sectors when energy prices exceed the threshold value. The findings emphasize the importance of energy prices for energy conservation and emission reduction and imply that energy prices can be used as a regulation tool for government industrial energy saving and emission reduction.

The impact of relative energy prices on industrial energy consumption in China: a consideration of inflation costs.

Significant effort has been exerted on the study of economic variables such as absolute energy prices to understand energy consumption and economic growth. However, this approach ignores general inflation effects, whereby the prices of baskets of goods may rise or fall at different rates from those of energy prices. Thus, it may be the relative energy price, not the absolute energy price, that has most important effects on energy consumption. To test this hypothesis, we introduce a new explanatory variable, the domestic relative energy price, which we define as "the ratio of domestic energy prices to the general price level of an economy," and we test the explanatory power of this new variable. Thus, this paper explores the relationship between relative energy prices and energy consumption in China from the perspective of inflation costs over the period from 1988 to 2012. The direct, regulatory and time-varying effects are captured using methods such as ridge regression and the state-space model. The direct impacts of relative energy prices on total energy consumption and intensity are -0.337 and -0.250, respectively; the effects of comprehensive regulation on energy consumption through the economic structure and the energy structure are -0.144 and -0.148, respectively; and the depressing and upward effects of rising and falling energy prices on energy consumption are 0.3520 and 0.3564, respectively. When economic growth and the energy price level were stable, inflation persisted; thus, rising energy prices benefitted both the economy and the environment. Our analysis is important for policy makers to establish effective energy-pricing policies that ensure both energy conservation and the stability of the pricing system.

New model for sustainable management of pressurized irrigation networks. Application to Bembézar MD irrigation district (Spain).

Pressurized irrigation networks require large amounts of energy for their operation which are linked to significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In recent years, several management strategies have been developed to reduce energy consumption in the agricultural sector. One strategy is the reduction of the water supplied for irrigation but implies a reduction in crop yields and farmer's profits. In this work, a new methodology is developed for sustainable management of irrigation networks considering environmental and economic criteria. The multiobjective non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA II) has been selected to obtain the optimum irrigation pattern that would reduce GHG emissions and increase profits. This methodology has been applied to Bembézar Margen Derecha (BMD) irrigation district (Spain). Irrigation patterns that reduce GHG emissions or increase actual profits are obtained. The best irritation pattern reduces the current GHG emissions in 8.56% with increases the actual profits in 14.56%. Thus, these results confirm that simultaneous improvements in environmental and economic factors are possible.