Consumer Bill Research Articles

Achieving economy‐wide gains from residential energy efficiency improvements: The importance of timing and funding approach in driving the transition

AbstractResidential energy efficiency improvements are generally considered integral to achieving climate change targets. Alongside the primary benefits of reducing energy use and consumer bills, there is increasing policy interest in the potential for energy efficiency programmes to deliver economy‐wide gains, measured by gross domestic product, employment, household real incomes and spending power etc. Our previous research shows that such sustained gains are likely over time. Here, we consider how transitory outcomes are likely to be heavily influenced by the timing of actions and who pays, how and when. Insight in this regard is crucial for policy makers considering the mix and timing of measures to reach net zero outcomes that are economically as well as technically feasible. We consider alternative funding, distributions and timeframes for residential retrofitting costs and projects using a UK economy‐wide scenario simulation model. The key insight is that while government support for the provision of low‐cost finance options is strategically important in alleviating budget constraints and mitigating potential short‐term negative impacts on household spending, producer responses to the wind down of retrofitting spending can disrupt the adjustment of the economy. Here we identify pros and cons of different trajectories of action towards high‐level energy efficiency policy targets.

A novel energy storage and demand side management for entire green smart grid system for NEOM city in Saudi Arabia

AbstractHybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) are gaining high interest in supplying electric energy for remote communities. Energy storage systems (ESS) are utilized by green autonomous HRESs to accommodate the variability of renewable resources such as wind and solar energy systems. The lack of any traditional energy source is adding a great reliability challenge which should be compensated using expensive ESS. This challenge can be avoided by using a pumped hydro energy storage system (PHES) in harmony with batteries. The PHES is an excellent option to be used in NEOM city due to the perfect topographical characteristic of this site. The minimum cost of energy and the highest reliability is used as an objective for sizing the proposed entire green HRES. Using smart grid principles (SGP) and demand‐side management (DSM) in the design and operation stages will minimize system size and cost, which can result in a significant reduction in consumer bills. As a result, this paper introduces an innovative DSM based on a dynamic tariff. The suggested DSM technique was developed utilizing a unique fuzzy logic that takes into account the present and day‐ahead ESS situations to intelligently determine the ideal tariff for the lowest cost and maximum reliability of the HRES. This paper introduces a modified grey wolf optimization (MGWO) technique to shorten convergence time while preserving the best accuracy. The suggested MGWO is assessed against 10 swarm optimization techniques. The payback period of the project is 7 years. The findings acquired from this unique program demonstrated its superiority, with conversion times reduced by 22% to 80% when compared to previous optimization procedures. Furthermore, as compared to the flat rate pricing tariff, the usage of the dynamic tariff lowered the LCOE by 53%.

Benefits and barriers concerning demand response stakeholder value chain: A systematic literature review

Demand Response (DR) is acknowledged to play a relevant role in future electrical power systems. To achieve decarbonization, increasing shares of renewable electricity will induce changes in market design and system operation. New opportunities and challenges will emerge for all market participants. However, regulatory and technology bottlenecks combined with conflicts of interest among actors may deaccelerate DR implementation.This research performed a systematic literature review on five different databases to identify DR benefits and barriers attributable to different actors. Both benefits and barriers were found for all the stakeholders. Consumer bill savings and financial incentives were the most common benefits attributable to DR, on the contrary, consumer lack of interest and knowledge, privacy protection and cyber security were the most common referred barriers. In the second stage, both benefits and barriers were respectively divided into four main categories: Society-wide; Technology-wide; Financial and Market-wide and Environmental-wide benefits and Technology-wide, Economic and Market-wide context barriers. The classification of individual benefits and barriers demonstrated that some categories, such as technology-wide, are relevant both for benefits and barriers. DR implementation complexity and the number of stakeholders involved require DR policies to have certain specific characteristics to give them directionality towards DR successful implementation.

Investigation of a Battery Storage System Aimed at Demand-Side Management of Residential Load

In this paper, an approach is presented for the demand-side management of residential loads in the urban areas of Pakistan using a battery storage system at the feeder level. The proposed storage system will be installed by a private distributor to supply affordable electricity during peak hours. The experimental data used to carry out this research work are the Pakistan Residential Energy Consumption (PRECON) data set. The households of the data set are categorized based on electric power usage through K-means clustering. The clusters are expanded for feeder synthesis to represent small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale consumption. This expansion is performed through uniform distribution in a Monte Carlo simulation. The techno-economic analysis for the installation of a battery storage system is carried out for each feeder using SAM. The results of the research project elucidated that the load factors of the feeders representing small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale consumption improved by 1%, 6%, and 7% by using the optimally sized batteries of 50 kW (670 kWh), 90 kW (1207 kWh), and 100 kW (1360 kWh), respectively. The distributor profit and the consumer utility bill savings ranged from US$12 k to US$25 k. The results proved the validity of the used approach to simultaneously reduce the consumer bill, maximize the distributor profit, and improve the feeder load factor. The novelty of this work lies in the location and in the way the system modeling has been performed with limited data.

Vehicle to grid: driver plug-in patterns, their impact on the cost and carbon of charging, and implications for system flexibility

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) from electric vehicles (EVs) represents an opportunity to provide transitioning electricity systems with battery storage as they face increasing shares of variable renewable generation. However, whilst the availability of V2G as dispatchable storage depends on the travel and charging habits of drivers, there is scarce experience of managing portfolios of EVs in this way. This paper investigates the impact of plug-in frequency – given real-life travel data – on the potential of V2G to reduce i) consumer bills and ii) carbon emissions of charging. In doing so, we investigate the extent to which consumers are incentivised to participate in V2G, how this might change based on different charging behaviours, and what the implications are for V2G as a storage asset. Two models of plug-in behaviour are input into a time-coupled optimisation that schedules EV (dis)charging to minimise the net cost of an EV’s required energy gain within network constraints, simulating how V2G could be dispatched by a ‘load controller’ in a liberalised electricity market. The cost minimisation is based on the Octopus Agile V2G tariff in January 2021, which is matched to GB grid carbon intensity data from National Grid ESO for the same period. It was found that, on the basis of the time range studied, V2G can reduce the average price paid for EV-charging electricity by 28–67% versus a flat tariff – with the lower end of that range representing a case where consumers only plug in when they ‘need’ to, and the higher end representing the case where consumers plug in whenever their cars are at home. It was also found that due to the weak positive correlation between price and carbon during the time range studied, optimising for price also resulted in slight reductions in carbon intensity of the EV-charging electricity by 5–6% compared to uncontrolled charging, with the range representing the same cases as before. Taking into account a review of battery degradation costs from V2G, using an EV’s battery in this manner only makes financial sense to the owner if they maximise their plug-in frequency; this, alongside the increased savings, should provide an incentive to owners to plug in as much as possible – thereby maximising storage resource for a low carbon electricity system. • A time-coupled vehicle to grid (V2G) charging model is presented. • Drivers’ charging frequency significantly impacts storage resource from V2G. • Drivers who always plug in on arrival at home pay less for charging through V2G. • EV owners will be incentivised to plug in as often as possible. • Storage resource from electric vehicles will be maximised.

Blockchain Technology as an Alternative Method of Payment Transaction Proof

Today, the development of information technology allows all needs in the payment system to conduct safely and reliably with the support of blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is currently a concept getting more attention in financial technology (Fintech). This technology combines several computer technologies, including distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission, consensus mechanisms, and encryption algorithms often referred to as cryptography. Currently, various payment methods are available, Direct payment methods via the website, credit cards, automatic debit (Autopay), Mobile / Internet Banking, Non-bank, E-commerce, and E-wallet. All of the above payment systems still require a third party as a guarantor for the transactions made. Another problem that arises is a notification of bill dues to consumers, using conventional media in letters, emails, and notices of short message service (SMS), which allows consumers to miss the given deadline. It could cause the service to terminate. Blockchain technology is currently still considered an innovation that disrupts the world of banking and the internet. However, because this technology is a breakthrough major in data storage and information transmission, it will fundamentally change the global financial and economic operating model towards new technologies and industrial transformation in the financial industry. Current consumer bill payment methods use conventional banking systems, and notification systems for payment deadlines are less efficient; we propose a payment system with blockchain technology and the internet of things (IoT) to solve the current problem.

The size, causes, and equity implications of the demand-response gap

Our analysis of policy options was motivated by an inexplicable under-investment in demand response (DR) in the U.S. state of Georgia. In addition to estimating the size of the DR gap, we identify its causes and consequences. By modifying parameters of the U.S. flagship National Energy Modeling System (NEMS), we generate a baseline DR forecast with a default 4% maximum on-peak demand reduction, an achievable case with a DR limit of 20%, and a technical scenario that also halved the cost of storage. The results document many benefits of DR including a demand-reduction induced price effect (DRIPE), which makes DR more equitable than many other clean-energy policies that shift costs to non-participants. Our modeling results, literature review, and focus group analysis enable identification of DR barriers and motivators related to financial costs, electricity rates, consumer bills, pollution emissions, public health, energy equity, and inclusion. Our results suggest that the DR gap is caused less by technology limitations than by the need for financing initiatives, market innovations, infrastructure modernization, and enablers of socio-economic inclusion. By studying a state that lags in DR implementation, other countries and sub-national entities where DR is under-utilized can learn from our findings and methods.

Consumer Insurance and the Necessity to Define it Within the Trade Insurance Bill

The governing laws on insurance relations in Iran are based on the 1316 Insurance Bill. In order to overcome the problems and ambiguities within this law, in 2005 the Iranian government presented a bill, labeled the ‘Trade Insurance Bill’, to the Iranian parliament; this was to be taken as a replacement for the Insurance Bill. However this bill does not address consumer insurance and there seems to be no difference between trade insurance and consumer insurance within the bill. Thus insurers offering consumer insurance are not required to undertake the same obligations as the insurers of non-consumer insurance. As a result, they are not equally protected by sanctions. This matter is unacceptable in the current legal society and is not in sync with financial and insurance policies around the world.In this study, the Adaptive Study Method is employed to illustrate the necessity of distinguishing between consumer insurance and non-consumer insurance. In consumer insurance, clauses, which differ from permitted disclosure clauses in non-consumer insurance policies and which offer suitable legal sanctions, must be put in place. This study offers several suggestions to help reform the Trade Consumer Bill.

Distribution transformer load behavior, burden, and characteristics of residential consumers: A case study of Baghdad City

The present study focuses on distribution transformer load behavior and characteristics of residential consumers in Baghdad City. Real-data obtained from outputs of electrical load recording equipment and consumer billing data are used. The sample includes three categories of residential consumers from six different areas geographically distributed throughout the city (total of 3000 consumers). A novel algorithm called orthogonal particle swarm optimization is applied to construct a new approach to electricity demand modeling for the city. Then, the quantitative relationship between energy consumption, peak kW demand during peak demand periods (July and August), and annual energy consumption are evaluated. A quantitative relationship between the coincidence factor and N number of consumers is determined. Results of this study have been successfully applied in determining the distribution transformer burden, which can assist design engineers in calculating and setting the number of consumers connected to the distribution transformer. Such outcomes provide useful references for planning, designing, and load demand forecasting for power distribution systems in the future.

A Game-Theoretic Multi-Level Energy Demand Management for Smart Buildings

The advent of smart grids offers us the opportunity to better manage the electricity grids. One of the most interesting challenges in the modern grids is the consumer demand management. Indeed, the development in information and communication technologies encourages the development of demand-side management systems. This paper introduces two electricity management mechanisms in a smart buildings’ context. We first use negotiation and multi-leader–follower game techniques to model the interactions between the electricity providers and the buildings’ consumers. Then, we propose a distributed energy demand scheduling approach based on game theory with minimal interactions between consumers to optimize the energy demand cost. This approach aims to reduce the total energy cost and the peak to average consumption ratio, and to maximize the exploitation of renewable energy. We use a multi-agent system to model the system entities. The performance evaluation demonstrates that our distributed approach reduces the total consumption cost as well as each consumer bill.

Mitigating Economic Denial of Sustainability (EDoS) in Cloud Environment using Genetic Algorithm and Artificial Neural Network

Economic Denial of Sustainability (EDoS) is a latest threat in the cloud environment in which EDoS attackers continually request huge number of resources that includes virtual machines, virtual security devices, virtual networking devices, databases and so on to slowly exploit illegal traffic to trigger cloud-based scaling capabilities. As a result, the targeted cloud ends with a consumer bill that could lead to bankruptcy. This paper proposes an intelligent reactive approach that utilizes Genetic Algorithm and Artificial Neural Network (GANN) for classification of cloud server consumer to minimize the effect of EDoS attacks and will be beneficial to small and medium size organizations. EDoS attack encounters the illegal traffic so the work is progressed into two phases: Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used to determine affected path and to detect suspected service provider out of the detected affected route which further consist of training and testing phase. The properties of every server are optimized by using an appropriate fitness function of Genetic Algorithm (GA) based on energy consumption of server. ANN considered these properties to train the system to distinguish between the genuine overwhelmed server and EDoS attack affected server. The experimental results show that the proposed Genetic and Artificial Neural Network (GANN) algorithm performs better compared to existing Fuzzy Entropy and Lion Neural Learner (FLNL) technique with values of precision, recall and f-measure are increased by 3.37%, 10.26% and 6.93% respectively.

ANALISIS PENGELOLAAN PIUTANG DAN POTENSI PIUTANG YANG TIDAK TERTAGIH SEBAGAI TINDAK LANJUT KEBIJAKAN PEMBAYARAN KREDIT PADA BIMBINGAN BELAJAR X DI MADIUN

<em>This study aims to analyze the management accounts and the potential doubtful as a follow-up loan payments policy on tutoring X in Madiun. Accounts receivable is one type of accounting transactions dealing with the billing of consumers is owed on a person, a company, or an organization for goods and services that has been given to the consumer. Results of research conducted at the Institute of tutoring X in Madiun, the researchers conclude that the management of receivables and the potential doubtful at a tutoring agency X in Madiun there have been improvements in the new school year 2016-2017. So in the new academic year 2015-2016 is no longer doubtful, but still no payment policy on credit to be paid each maturity. <strong>Keywords: </strong>Receivables Management, Potential Accounts Receivables photo and Follow-Up Credit Policy</em>

Who Pays for Retail Electric Deregulation? Evidence of Cross-Subsidization from Complete Bill Data

Retail electric deregulation has been identified in the literature to have favorable price impacts to businesses and households because of the introduction of competition into rate-setting. Those studies often ignore the important role of regulatory intervention. They are also generally national or multi-state aggregated studies that ignore state- and utility-specific dynamics, and most rely on Energy Information Administration (EIA) price data that does not account for riders and surcharges on consumer bills, which can total more than 60 percent of bills. Using a unique panel of representative, complete electricity bill data from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), this paper provides a multi-utility panel regression analysis of the effect of retail deregulation on total electric bills in Ohio. The results identify two main sources of cross-subsidization that have generally cancelled out the favorable effects of restructuring. Both types of cross-subsidies result in substantial burden shifts to residential consumers.

Artificial Intelligence for Energy Efficiency: Predicting the Unpredictable

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are playing a vital role in keeping up with the global demand for clean, cheap and reliable energy. Recent studies show how the world is investing more on renewable sources of energy than the traditional fossil ones which brought the interest in maximizing its utilization. This paper shows research over supply-demand curve, how artificial intelligence predicts the future demands of the energy by intelligently evaluating the unpredictable weather conditions and managing the integrated system (which is a combination of renewable sources and fossil fuels) to optimize the production of electricity. This way clean energy will be produced for the people, it will lower down the storage cost and consumer billing costs; it will enhance the output by the use of renewable sources of energy.

Unbridled Commitment to Profit by Nigeria’s Electricity Distribution Companies and Spirituality in Consumer Value Creation: An Assessment of the Adoption by the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company of the Inherited Industry-Wide Strategy of the Estimated Consumer Billing System

The study was to investigate how the unbridled commitment of the electricity distribution companies in Nigeria to profit affects their spirituality in consumer value creation; while also establishing the extent to which the distribution companies have affected the consumers with the fraudulent and unethical estimated and coded billing system inherited from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria. Focus was on Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company. Within the operational domain of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, the study concentrated on the electricity consumers in Alimosho Local Government Area in Lagos State. The sample size was 377 calculated using Raosoft sample size calculator. Out of the 377 copies of the questionnaire administered, 322 were returned fully completed representing a response rate of 85.41%. Two hypotheses were tested; and they showed that: 1) The unbridled commitment to pursuit of profits by the electricity distribution companies (Discos) as private investors has a significant effect on their ability to adhere to spirituality in value creation for the electricity consumers; and 2) The adoption of inherited billing system by the electricity distribution companies (Discos) as private investors has a significant effect on their ability to adhere to spirituality in value creation for the electricity consumers. The analysis of data was done with Z test. There were 14 findings. The main recommendation is that the distribution company should jettison the fraudulent and unethical estimated and coded billing system and embrace spirituality in value creation using the generic building blocks of competitive advantage: efficiency, quality, innovation, and customer responsiveness which will make them gain competitive advantage over their rivals; even the industry is eventually deregulated.

Using data analytics for business decisions in the UK energy sector: a case study integrating gas demand with weather data

Data analytics has been highlighted in many sectors as providing a pivotal role in business operations and strategy. The energy and utility sectors in the UK are becoming increasingly aware of the value of their operational data and investigation into how statistical analysis can improve operational efficiency and performance, leading to savings and reduced consumer bills. Vast resources of open data are accessible and analysing integrated datasets enhances the opportunities for insight. This paper demonstrates data analytics via a case study. Gas demand is highly volatile with many influencing factors. Regional weather measurements used to predict demand are inadequate and unrepresentative of local areas; daily discrepancies of over £140,000 were identified between forecasts of gas demand. Establishing demand profiles for smaller areas enables better predictions and hence reduced purchasing and storage costs. Such enhanced knowledge of infrastructure capacity and utilisation is timely ahead of increased emphasis on sustainability. [Received: December 2, 2016; Accepted: July 19, 2017]

AN APPRAISAL OF THE IMPACT OF THE ELECTRICITY POWER SECTOR REFORM PROJECT ON INDUSTRIALIZATION IN NIGERIA

This paper examines the effect of the electricity power sector reform Act on industrialization in Nigeria. Power has been a recurring problem in Nigeria in what has been commonly referred to as the electricity gap. The federal government of Nigeria came up with a comprehensive legislation to boost power supply. The implementation of this legislation has led to a partial privatization of the hitherto fully state-owned parastatal that was responsible for electricity generation and supply. The paper examines the outcome of the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA), 2005 on the rate and level of industrialization in Nigeria. It was found that the Act has not, in any way, significantly improved electricity supply in Nigeria. Consequently, Nigerian industries are still groaning under increased cost of production occasioned largely by epileptic power supply. The absence of prepaid digital meters for the billing of many electricity consumers has also worsened the plight of industries that use electricity, and which are forced to pay for electricity supplied under an estimated billing system. The study adopted the doctrinal research approach.

Expanding the Consumer Bill of Rights for material ingredients

Expanding the Consumer Bill of Rights for material ingredients

The costs and benefits of real-time pricing: An empirical investigation into consumer bills using hourly energy data and prices

This study analyzed smart meter data to compare how residential consumers would have fared in 2016 under traditional, flat-rate electricity pricing versus the ‘real-time pricing’ program offered by Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison. Although further study is needed with more customers and multiple years, 97% of households in the study would have saved with real-time pricing. The average savings would have been $86.63, or 13.2%, annually. Total savings would have been $29.8 million.

ANALISIS PENGELOLAAN PIUTANG DAN POTENSI PIUTANG YANG TIDAK TERTAGIH SEBAGAI TINDAK LANJUT KEBIJAKAN PEMBAYARAN KREDIT PADA BIMBINGAN BELAJAR X DI MADIUN

This study aims to analyze the management of receivables and the potential of uncollectible receivables as a follow-up policy of credit payments on the guidance of learning X in Madiun.Piutang is one type of accounting transactions that take care of consumer billing is owed to a person, a company, or an organization for goods And services that have been given to the consumer. This research uses experimental research method is research that deliberately researcher manipulation to one variable with a certain way so that influence on one or more other variable that measured. In addition, Gay (1981: 207-208) states that experimental research methods are the only research method that can correctly test hypotheses concerning causal relationships (causation). The results of research conducted at the Institute of Tutoring X in Madiun, the researcher concludes that the management of accounts receivable and uncollectible potentials in the institution of learning guidance X in Madiun there has been improvement in the new academic year 2016-2017. So that in the new academic year 2015-2016 is no longer any receivables that are not collectible, but there is still a policy of payment on credit that must be paid every maturity.<p><br /><strong>Keywords : Receivables Management, Unsecured Accounts Receivable Potential and Follow-Up Credit Policy.</strong></p>