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• We devise a model to site and size the vehicle-to-grid facilities in a microgrid. • We develop a scalable methodology to solve the proposed optimization model. • We conduct case studies on a 14 and 37-bus systems for a horizon of 5 years. • We assess the impact of uncertainty and technical parameters on the proposed plan. • We show that the vehicle-to-grid technology improves the economics of microgrids. In this paper, we propose a new optimization model for investment planning for Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology in a microgrid. The V2G technology allows the microgrid to take advantage of temporal arbitrage in the electricity market, and hence, improve economic viability of electric vehicles. We present both a mathematical model and a custom solution methodology for this problem. The proposed stochastic model is a very large-scale mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, and thereby, we develop an algorithm that provides high-quality solutions. A case study for 14-node and 37-node microgrid test systems for a planning horizon of five years is presented, and a thorough sensitivity analysis for effects of uncertainty, investors preferred payback period, market price fluctuations and electric vehicles arrival and departure rates is discussed. The simulation results show that investing in the V2G technology can considerably improve the long-term economics of the microgrid, but the obtained profit and the payback period can vary from one plan to another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency and air pollution mitigation are critical issues for future development of the Chinese economy. Energy savings and their contribution to reduced air pollution from energy sectors during the 12th Five Year Plan are assessed using input-output analysis. A new dynamic quantitative method was developed to explore key sectors and identify critical paths for efficient emission reductions from energy industries. All the energy intensive key sectors, including Metal, Power, Chemical Products, Nonmetal are used to determine critical paths for emission reductions. Results indicate that the Coal Sector failed to achieve significant energy savings and did not contribute to direct and overall emissions reductions. The Oil Sector only achieved co-effects for reduction of overall waste gas, SO 2 , and particulates, while the Power Sector achieved emission reductions of all air pollutants. The results suggest that Chinese government should enact four main measures to achieve effective targets for energy savings and emission reductions: (1) Strengthen energy conservation in Coal and Oil Sectors , particularly the Coal Sector. (2) Promote energy conservation and emission reductions in highly energy intensive sectors to help emission reductions from other sectors. (3) Promote synergy effects of energy savings and emission reductions to enterprises. (4) Set lowest emission reduction targets for each department combined with targets for energy savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines issues of and prospects for China’s innovative development, the formation processes of the strategy of introduction of the advanced world experience as well as new scientific and technological innovations during the past seven five-year-plan periods (from 1981 to 2015). The article assesses plans and prospects of scientific and technological development in the 13th five-year-plan period (2016-2020). It also analyzes the main development trends, problems, and difficulties confronting China along the developmental path toward an innovative economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A peculiar model of post-communist political economy has evolved in Belarus under President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. It features prioritisation of non-entrepreneurial social groups, a strong role for the state, and extensive social security provision. The model appears to be grounded on Lukashenka's understanding of his political powerbase; having no external backing for his policies, he wants to command as wide grass-roots support as possible to remain in office. By doing so, he rejects the principles of pluralist democracy and market economy, making Belarus's political economy model quite different from that envisaged in the mainstream post-communist theories of neo-liberalism and gradualism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This chapter provides a presentation about Chapter 1 of The Balance of the National Economy, 1923-24, edited by Pavel Illich Popov. The Balance was issued in June 1926 by the Central Statistical Administration (CSV or TsSU) of the USSR, which Popov had headed from July 1918 to January 1926. In the first part of our chapter, we show how Popov's work on the balance of the national economy was rooted in the specific scientific and political culture of zemstvo statisticians inherited from the Tsar. Statistical inquiry was considered an objective scientific process based on international standards. Furthermore, like zemstvo statisticians, CSU statisticians developed great autonomous political power. The balance of the national economy was built according to these principles, which met harsh criticism from revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. In the second part, we analyze the contents of Popov's Chapter 1, especially the theoretical foundations of the balance and its connection with Soviet planning. In the third part, we discuss the balance's significance in the years 1926-1929, years which ended the NEP and launched the first Five-Year Plan, so as to understand how CSU's balance didn't become a standard Soviet statistical instrument and was discarded as a "bourgeois" device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With a population of over 1.3 billion people, demand for renewable energy is expected to grow to a USD $12 billion market in the near term. Under Renewable Energy Law (REL) in February 2005 in the People''s Republic of China (PRC) passed by the National Congress, renewable energy projects will be able to receive a range of financial incentives starting in 2006, which will more than double the PRC current renewable energy generation from 7% to 15% by 2020. Most of the increase will be in hydroelectric generated power. Nonetheless, the nation and especially the provinces are moving rapidly to develop a wide range of renewable energy generation including solar, wind, geothermal and run of the river. Because China practices “social capitalism” as expressed in it''s recurrent Five Year National Plans since 1999, the national government and all the provinces have programs, unlike many western and industrialized nations, to “plan” and provide for infrastructures. This paper concerns only the energy infrastructure sector and renewable energy generation in particular. The planning process includes financial incentives and investments which are a major part of the Chinese law focused on “encouraging foreign investment industries”. The key part of the law is to guarantee long-term power purchase agreements with state owned and controlled “utilities”. In short, China may have gotten the economics of the energy sector correct in its concern for planning and finance. The paper develops these energy infrastructure ideas along with the legal and financial requirements as “lessons” learned from the USA and especially California. These lessons now apply to China and allow it to learn from the American mistakes. Empirical data will be drawn from work done in China that examine the renewable energy generation and infrastructures and hence allow the RPC and its Provinces to “leap frog ”the mistakes of other developed nations. Further lessons will be learned from provinces and related infrastructures in China, such as water, transportation, environment, waste and telecommunications. More significantly, the USA and western industrialized nations may now learn from the Chinese. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the past two decades, China has impressed the world with its rapid economic growth and urbanization which has been responsible for eliminating much of the world's abject poverty. Its continued high single-digit growth promises to bring both societal improvements and growth concerns. From environment degradation to energy shortages, many studies have been conducted on the technologies and methods that might ameliorate these growing problems. The Chinese government has promulgated numerous environmental and development laws, decrees and policies, as the push for sustainable development showcased in the next Five-Year Plan demonstrates. Sceptics give little credit to China's sustainable development rhetoric and are correct in raising the issues of local government compliance and lack of public participation and support. But what differentiates this policy from past environmental rhetoric is that sustainable development presents itself to the Chinese as a real solution for a pressing issue. The 11th Five-Year Plan reveals that choice and the need to quickly enact sustainable development policy to maintain national stability. China has reached a point where it is desperate for energy, fearful of social instability and economically able to take action for sustainable development. Never before has this combination coincided with an emboldened environmental civil society and increased international pressure and aid. This combination of factors bodes well for China's urban sustainability policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information related to several abstracts on economics published in the February 1962 issue of the journal 'Oxford Economic Papers.' Examination of India's third five year plan; Marginal rate of saving in the Indian economy; Indian balance of payments policy and exchange auctions.