{"title":"The infrastructure cost for depot charging of battery electric trucks","authors":"Guihua Wang, Marshall R. Miller, Lewis M. Fulton","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107490","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107490","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electric vehicle (EV) depot charging is critical for truck fleet operators to convert their conventional vehicles to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). This study uses California as the context and considers two example fleets: a fleet of medium-duty delivery trucks and a fleet of heavy-duty short-haul trucks. Assuming trucks are charged at a depot by direct current (DC) fast chargers (50 kW, 150 kW, or 350 kW) or high-power level 2 chargers, we estimate charging infrastructure cost as a function of the EV fleet size. Results indicate that per-vehicle infrastructure cost would decrease substantially as the fleet size increases, though infrastructure cost is very sensitive to charger utilization rates. The higher the charger utilization, the lower the infrastructure cost would be, as the depot would need fewer chargers installed. Therefore, one cost reduction strategy is to improve daily utilization rates to reduce the charger count demand and thus reduce the infrastructure cost.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"Article 107490"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144696698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of power outages on Ecuadorian science","authors":"Lenin Ramírez-Cando, Santiago Ballaz","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The authors of this perspective paper provide their personal opinions about the effects of prolonged power outages on Ecuadorian scientific research and academy, and how the government and foreign investors could improve the situation by managing renewable energy in one of the nations with the most plentiful natural resources in the world.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"Article 107488"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Issa Dianda , Djakaria Tou , Patrice Rélouendé Zidouemba
{"title":"Narrowing the urban-rural electricity gap in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does equal distribution of political power matter?","authors":"Issa Dianda , Djakaria Tou , Patrice Rélouendé Zidouemba","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107485","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107485","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how the distribution of political power affects rural electrification and the urban-rural electricity access gap in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using panel data for 45 countries from 2000 to 2022, we apply instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) to capture heterogeneous effects across the distribution of electricity outcomes. Results show that more equitable political power—across rural-urban lines, gender, socioeconomic status and social groups—significantly improves rural electrification and reduces electricity inequality. These findings are robust to alternative estimation techniques and highlight the role of political inclusion in promoting energy equity. They underscore the need for institutional reforms to ensure balanced representation in energy policymaking.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"Article 107485"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144490392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Navigating the electric storm: Assessing policy responses to Europe’s energy shock","authors":"Matteo Alpino , Emanuela Ciapanna , Luca Citino , Gabriele Rovigatti","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107474","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107474","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We take an off-the-shelf model of the day-ahead electricity market, in the spirit of (Reguant, 2019) and use it to study how different emergency policy interventions proposed in response to the 2021–2022 European energy crisis would feed into short run wholesale electricity price and quantity dynamics. Calibrating the model to Italian data, our analysis predicts that an EU-wide cap on natural gas prices significantly reduces electricity prices, while consumed quantities increase only marginally. A mandated reduction in electricity demand during peak hours leads to modest price declines, while a national cap on gas prices for electricity generation triggers a sharper increase in consumption due to cross-border trade incentives. These findings suggest that emergency interventions can mitigate the short-term impact of price shocks, though they may also introduce inefficiencies in terms of energy consumption and market distortions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 4","pages":"Article 107474"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144314298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"French market design in practice: Some lessons from the 2022 energy crisis","authors":"Nicolas Astier","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107483","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107483","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Between 2005 and 2021, France has generated more electricity from fossil-free resources (491 TWh/year on average) than its gross domestic consumption (481 TWh/year). Therefore, in terms of total surplus, the French electricity sector should have been barely hit, if at all, by the surge in fossil fuel prices during the 2022 energy crisis. In practice, however, the French government spent billions of euros in subsidies to electricity consumers, the incumbent utility – who operates the whole nuclear fleet – recorded its worst yearly financial result to date, and total electricity imports exceeded exports for the first time in more than 40 years. Although these outcomes can largely be attributed to bad luck, the extent to which they could have been mitigated through better market design and public policies is an open question. This article argues that existing policies, through their implied incentives to share and manage long-term risks, played a critical role in how France fared during the energy crisis. Consistently, reforming long-term risk-sharing mechanisms has emerged as the most pressing issue to address. Looking forward, however, updating short-term wholesale market design will likely prove increasingly important to better support a low-cost and reliable energy transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"Article 107483"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144281050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heat pumps emit more carbon than efficient fossil heating in new england because of dirty marginal power generation fuels","authors":"Constantine Gonatas","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107477","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107477","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electrification by substituting heat pumps for fossil heating assumes carbon emissions are thereby lowered. However, detailed studies of the marginal emissions impact from a heat pump have rarely been validated against historical data. This study estimates emissions using a backcast of actuals from 2018 in New England to infer the impact of heat pump conversions. The model suggests a heat pump would have emitted 68 % more CO2 than a 90 % efficient gas furnace. But if oil and coal plants had not been activated, the model suggests heat pumps would only have emitted 3.3 % more CO2 than a gas furnace. Carbon emissions vary with the relative efficiency of the marginal electric generator and heat pump. Heat pump efficiency declines during cold weather, coinciding with peak heating load. Emissions are dominated by short periods when coal and oil generation resources operate, coinciding with low temperatures. But even with coal and oil plants on the system, a hybrid heat pump - gas furnace configuration reduces CO2 emissions 5.6 % compared to a gas furnace alone. Thus hybrid operation is preferred where fossil fuels are primarily on the margin.<span><span><sup>1</sup></span></span></div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"Article 107477"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wires and fire: Wildfire investment and network cost differences across California’s power providers","authors":"Madalsa Singh , Alison Ong , Rayan Sud","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107475","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107475","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electricity affordability is a salient policy concern in California. We compare drivers of increasing utility costs for three types of power providers in California: investor-owned utilities (IOUs), publicly owned utilities (POUs), and community choice aggregators (CCAs). Since 2019, the IOU and CCA residential baseline electricity rates have increased by 44–80 % after accounting for inflation, making them some of the most expensive power providers in the United States. POU prices, however, remained nearly unchanged. We compare long-term trends in capital assets, returns, and operation and maintenance expenses to identify sources of increasing utility costs, one of the factors contributing to rising electricity prices in the state. Across IOUs, generation capital assets have declined. Fuel and power purchase expenses have increased, although these increases remain within their historical ranges. Transmission and distribution (T&D) expenses have increased significantly and are the majority of overall costs. T&D operations and maintenance spiked following major wildfires after years of remaining constant despite an aging and expanding electricity grid. CCAs reach price parity with IOUs due to the high costs of T&D infrastructure and exit fees levied on them. POUs, which service smaller territories with low wildfire risks, also expanded their T&D capital assets, operations, and maintenance expenses, but the increase is modest. We foresee continued price divergence among power providers due to wildfire mitigation costs, which will have important affordability consequences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"Article 107475"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144194801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From screens to grids: A web scrapping analysis of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"Pius Gamette , Simplice A. Asongu","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107472","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107472","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In view of the lagging position of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to other regional blocs in accessing electricity coupled with the wide disparity in rural-urban access to electricity, this study adopts the scrapping method to efficiently gather and analyse social discourse in real time. From the YouTube platform, this study examined 887 comments from January 2014 to July 2024. The result revealed that \"ANC,\" \"Africa,\" \"south,\" \"power,\" and \"will\" were the most frequently discussed topics in the discourse of electricity access. Also, more positive-tone comments were recorded than negative-tone remarks within the period. In terms of subjective polarity analysis, comments were positively inclined. The top ten topics that emerged were “ANC”, “Energy”, “People”, “Country”, “Government”, “Electricity”, “Eskom”, “Africa”, “Power” and “South”. The heatmap showed that there were a few topics with high correlation values. For cluster analysis, “South”, “Country”, “Eskom”, “Power” and “Energy” had positive sentiments and contents. On the contrary, “Government”, “Africa” and “People” were topics of negative sentiments and contents. Only “ANC” connected neutral sentiments and content. “ANC”, “Africa” and “country” had an 81.77 % degree of centrality in the public digital discourse on access to electricity in SSA countries. This study has important ramifications for SSA, an energy-poor region towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 2","pages":"Article 107472"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144106347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Electric mobility investments: Insights from power-transport coupling from developing countries","authors":"Wale Arowolo, Mamadou Diallo, Yannick Perez","doi":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107473","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tej.2025.107473","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Electric mobility seems promising for the decarbonisation of the power and transport sectors. Nonetheless, making investment decisions on electric mobility in developing countries remains topical in policy and academic debate. This paper contributes to the transport and power sector coupling debate to understand investment decision-making on electric mobility. We propose a framework and identify developing countries that could be considered for private-sector investment in electric mobility. We validate our framework with case studies on investments in electric mobility in China, Brazil, India, Colombia, Türkiye and Chile. We argue that developing countries with wholesale power markets, and wholesale and retail power markets could attract investment in electric mobility, albeit with a proliferation of low total cost of ownership electric mobility investment options such as two and three-electric wheelers and investments such as electric buses perceived to have notable contributions to achieving environmental/climate objectives. Thus, we argue that our framework and analyses could be helpful for policymakers and stakeholders in the power and transport sectors to identify and select developing countries for private sector-led electric mobility investment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":35642,"journal":{"name":"Electricity Journal","volume":"38 2","pages":"Article 107473"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143941312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}