Browsing by Author "Moyo, Alfred"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Open Access
    Assessing the role of solar home systems in poverty alleviation : case study of Rukungiri district in Western Uganda
    (2015) Julian, Hakirii; Prasad, Gisela; Moyo, Alfred
    Not only does Sub-Saharan Africa have the highest number of people who live below the poverty line, the region has the lowest rate of modern energy access at 32%. The provision of modern energy access in rural un-electrified areas has the potential to contribute to alleviation of poverty. The main objective of this study has therefore been to investigate the impact of Solar Home Systems (SHSs) in poverty alleviation in Uganda. The paper focuses on the impact on four socio-economic categories namely: economic, education, health and gender equity. Our study was carried out in Kebisoni, Uganda. The main finding from our study is that access to solar power does indeed alleviate poverty. The data indicated an increase in households' disposable income due to the use of solar energy for lighting. Savings were generated from a reduced expenditure on alternative lighting fuels such as kerosene. Some households used these savings to meet medically related expenses. Furthermore, our results revealed that there was an improvement in indoor air quality. Children in solar electricity connected households benefited, as they were now able to increase their hours of study at night. Lastly, the study also revealed that access to lighting from SHSs enabled women to supplement household income by engaging in businesses.
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    Open Access
    Information for a developmental approach to mitigation: linking sectoral and economy-wide models for Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and South Africa.
    (Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town., 2014) Winkler, Harald; Delgado, Ricardo; Palma-Behnke, Rodrigo; Pereira, Amaro; Moyo, Alfred; Wills, William; Salazar, Angel; Baos, Tessy Vásquez
    This paper reports on modelling approaches that provide information to answer policy-­relevant questions in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and South Africa. The analysis informs different country contexts: energy-related GHG emissions currently dominate in Chile and South Africa, while those due to agriculture, forestry and land-­use (AFOLU) are historically more important in Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
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    Investigating household energy poverty in South Africa by using unidimensional and multidimensional measures
    (2018) Mbewe, Samson; Madhlopa, Amos; Tait, Louise; Moyo, Alfred
    The ability to access affordable, reliable and modern energy services presents a pathway to social and economic development. Yet, the lack of access to modern energy services is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia. Following the declaration to achieve universal access to energy by 2030 in the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals – several tools have emerged tracking and monitoring energy access and energy poverty. Earlier efforts have focused on measuring energy poverty from a unidimensional perspective while recent efforts have focused on a multidimensional measurement. However, the growing trend in tracking and monitoring energy poverty using multidimensional indicators has been applied limitedly in the context of South Africa. Part of this has been associated with the lack of detailed and reliable survey data. With access to detailed survey data, this study aimed to evaluate household energy poverty in South Africa by using both unidimensional and multidimensional measures. This study constructed the energy budget share, also known as Tenth-Percentile Rule (TPR) (unidimensional) and the multidimensional energy poverty index (MEPI) using data from wave 1 (2008) and wave 4 (2014-2015) of the National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS) of South Africa. A 10 percent threshold was used for the energy-budget share while a 0.3 cutoff point was used for the MEPI. This study first computed national-level estimates of household energy poverty, and subsequently decomposed these estimates by province, household income poverty status and household location (urban versus rural). A sensitivity analysis was performed to test for the stability in ranking of provinces when the energy poverty threshold of the TPR was varied from 7 to 13 percent, and the energy poverty cutoff k of the MEPI was changed from 0.2 to 0.4. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was determined for each pair of ranking of provinces to establish the strength of correlation. Based on the TPR measure, results show that 21 and 13 percent of South African households lived in energy poverty in 2008 and 2014-2015, respectively. The MEPI measure indicates that 37 and 19 percent of the households lived in energy poverty in 2008 and 2014- 2015, respectively. Limpopo province had the highest rates of energy poverty in 2014-2015 with values of 25 percent (using TPR) and 52 percent (using MEPI). This study also found that by 2014-2015, only 23 percent (using the TPR) and 46 percent (using the MEPI) of energy poor households lived below the food poverty line of R430. Further, this study found that household energy poverty has reduced in rural areas and by 2014-2015, only 18 percent (using TPR) and 49 percent (using MEPI) of households located in rural areas lived in energy poverty. The lowest observed value of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient was 0.90. It is concluded that the overall household energy poverty has reduced in South Africa between 2008 and 2014-2015. The TPR gives lower estimates of energy poverty than the corresponding values obtained from the MEPI measure. There is negligible effect of varying the threshold values (within the studied range) of the TPR and k.
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    Reducing inequality and poverty while mitigating climate change: key challenges for research and practice in middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America
    (Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town., 2012) Rennkamp, Britta; Moyo, Alfred; Wills, William; Grottera, Carolina
    This paper provides some answers to this question and outlines future research on mitigation and inequality. The question is relevant, because developing countries have come under growing pressure to introduce mitigation actions that help to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. These mitigation actions need to be ‘nationally appropriate’ (UNFCCC 2007) and different from those in the developed countries, taking the economic structures, poverty and inequalities into account. Mitigating emissions and reducing poverty at the same time sharpens the trade-­off. Governments need to decide on expenditure of limited resources on poverty or mitigation. According to previous research the need for such a trade-­off decreases when countries become richer (Ravallion et al. 2000). This implies that governments have a growing option to achieve both ends.
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    Socio-economic implications of mitigation in the power sector including carbon taxes in South Africa
    (Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town., 2014) Merven, Bruno; Moyo, Alfred; Stone, Adrian; Dane, Anthony; Winkler, Harald
    The structure of this paper is as follows. The first section provides a discussion of recent developments within South Africa aimed at increasing the contribution of renewable energy. The second section gives a brief description of the carbon tax that National Treasury plans to implement and also provides an overview of previous studies on the implications of a carbon tax in South Africa. The linked model that we use for our analysis is described in section 3. This is then followed in section 4 by a description of the scenarios that we modelled, with results presented in section 5. The last section presents the conclusions and recommendations for further research.