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THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE FRONTIER RESEARCH AREA OF LOCAL ENERGY CONSERVATION AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS. THE VAST POTENTIAL FOR FINANCIAL AND ENERGY SAVINGS BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS THROUGH ENERGY CONSERVATION IS CONTRASTED TO A SIGNIFICANT LACK OF MEANINGFUL PROGRAMS BY REVIEWING CURRENT LOCAL PROGRAMS THROUGH EXAMINATION OF RESEARCH EFFORTS.

Das weltweite Energiesystem steht vor großen Herausforderungen. Wichtige Prüfsteine in diesem Zusammenhang sind eine Reduzierung der Treibhausgasemissionen sowie die Gewährleistung der Energiesicherheit und des Wettbewerbs auf den Märkten. In der Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Herausforderungen kommt dem technologischen Fortschritt eine entscheidende Rolle zu. Die Förderung eines klimafreundlichen und nachhaltigen "grünen" technologischen Fortschritts ist eine zentrale Zielstellung in der Politik verschiedener Länder. Die Analysen verwenden empirische Methoden, um die Rolle des technologischen Fortschritts im Nexus aus Energie, Technologie und Ökonomie näher zu ergründen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die entscheidenden Bestimmungsfaktoren eines "grünen, klimafreundlichen" technologischen Wandels zu identifizieren und in ihrer Wirkung zu analysieren. Die Auswertungen setzten sich mit zwei unterschiedlichen Phasen oder Stufen des Prozesses des technischen Fortschritts auseinander. Zum einen mit der Innovation, der Entstehung neuen Wissens und Entwicklung neuer Technologien, zum anderen mit der Adoption, der Übernahme und Anwendung von Technologien durch Endnutzer. Der Themenkomplex Innovation wird hierbei für den Bereich der Technologien zur Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien analysiert. Die Ergebnisse untermauern die Bedeutung von Wissenstransfer, so genanntem "knowledge spillover", im Innovationsprozess der erneuerbaren Energietechnologien. Des weiteren wird ein Ansatz entwickelt und ausgearbeitet, um solarthermische Technologien zur Elektrizitätserzeugung ("Concentrating solar power") in Patentdatensätzen zu identifizieren und die gewonnen Daten zur Analyse der Innovation in diesem Bereich zu nutzen. Die Adoption von Technologien wird im Zusammenhang mit Anlagen zur Erzeugung von Raumwärme im Haushaltsbereich untersucht. Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen, dass sozioökonomische Faktoren einen wichtigen Einfluss auf die Wahl von Heizungstechnologien nehmen. In einer vergleichenden Studie für Italien und Deutschland konnten ähnlich gelagerte Effekte auch für die Technologieadoption und Energienachfrage der Haushalte in beiden Ländern bestätigt werden. ; The global energy system is at a crossroads. Central challenges are curbing greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining security of supply, and fostering competitive markets. Technological change will be a crucial facilitator for achieving a low carbon, sustainable, secure, and competitive energy system in the future. Accelerating green, climate friendly technological change is therefore ranking high on the policy agenda of many countries. We use empirical/econometric methods to analyse the role of technological progress within the energy-technology-economy nexus. The objective consists in identifying and exploring determinants of the technological change process in green, climate friendly technologies. The analyses cover two aspects of technological change: the creation of new ideas and advances in the field of energy technologies (innovation), as well as the adoption and use of technologies. The studies on the driving forces of innovation focus on renewable energy technologies. The empirical models assess the importance of knowledge spillovers in the innovation process of renewable energy technologies. We further devise an approach to identify and retrieve concentrating solar power technologies from patent data which is used to study innovative activity in this field. The adoption of technologies is studied in the context of space heating in the residential sector. The results outline the importance of socio-economic characteristics in the selection of energy technologies by households. In a comparative study on Italian and German households, technology selection and energy demand could be shown to be mostly influenced by similar factors, in particular socio-economic characteristics, in these two countries.

This report reviews the status of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation introduced during the 110th Congress. Most Senate action led to the Senate version of H.R. 6, an omnibus energy bill that the Senate passed on June 21, 2007. Most House action led to the omnibus energy bill H.R. 3221, which the House passed on August 4, 2007. A second area of focus has been on the funding-related bills for energy efficiency and renewable energy, especially H.R. 2641, the Energy and Water Appropriations bill for FY 2008.

Effective technological energy conservation requires the following: joint ventures of government and individual consumers; willingness of both parties to act; and coincidence of their interests. The compatibility of national energy conservation options (centralized decisions) with the restricted microeconomic behaviour of the individual consumers (decentralized decisions) is examined using a large linear programming model for the former, while the latter is represented by the usual cost-benefit models of investment decisions. In both cases similar scenarios and input data are used. A comparative analysis of the results shows significant divergence between the optimal solutions of the two models, indicating that no real coincidence of interest exists under the given conditions. To narrow the gap between the two perspectives, it is proposed that the government should take into consideration the economic criteria of the individual consumers, defining appropriate policy measures such as pricing and incentives. © 1983.

The responsiveness of each state to 8 state conservation & renewable energy policies adopted from 1974 to 1980 is statistically analyzed. The variation in state policy activity is seen to be only modestly related to the states' past policy innovation traditions & conservation/renewable energy opportunities. Differences in energy vulnerability, & the relative hardship imposed by the energy crisis, have apparently had even less impact on the adoption pattern. These weak or insignificant relationships are typical of other efforts to explain state energy policy variations & are attributed to the following qualitative factors: federal preemption & inconsistency, ambivalent PO, conflicting values, lack of information on state energy conditions, & ignorance of the impacts of renewable energy & conservation policies. The findings identify several actions to increase sensitivity toward state energy conditions in policy making. 6 Tables, 34 References. Modified HA.

Information technology accounts for over one-third of recent U.S. GDP growth and nearly two-thirds of corporate capital investment. ''The New Economy'' appears omnipresent, but little is actually known about its workings.This seminal volume brings together the research and critical thinking of many of the world's top macro and micro economists to provide a unique, multifaceted perspective. Through the use of detailed, up-to-date country and industry studies, this book provides the most authoritative and detailed analysis ever assembled into the causes of technological innovation and its relationship to economic performance. The country studies cover the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Nordic states. Nine industry studies examine the Internet, computers and semiconductors, banking, securities trading, venture capital, energy, agricultural biotechnology, pharmaceutical biotechnology, and automobiles.Commissioned and brought together for the research project by the world-renowned Council on Foreign Relations, the authors have produced one of the most important compendia in applied economics to be published in recent times.The contributors are Charles Calomiris, Ian Domowitz, Robert Evenson, Charles Fine, Robert Gordon, Richard Langlois, Josh Lerner, Markku Malkamäki, Patrick Messerlin, Joel Mokyr, David Mowery, Richard R. Nelson, Stephen Nickell, Gary Pisano, Adam Posen, Daniel Raff, Horst Siebert, Timothy Simcoe, Benn Steil, Michael Stolpe, John Van Reenen, David Victor, and Matti Virén.

This paper investigates the impact of alternative environmental policy instruments on technological innovations aiming to improve energy-efficiency in buildings. The empirical analysis focuses on three main types of policy instruments, namely regulatory energy standards in buildings codes, energy taxes as captured by energy prices and specific governmental energy R&D expenditures. Technological innovation is measured using patent counts for specific technologies related to energy-efficiency in buildings (e.g. insulation, high-efficiency boilers, energy-saving lightings). The estimates for seven European countries over the 1989-2004 period imply that a strengthening of 10% of the minimum insulation standards for walls would increase the likelihood to file additional patents by about 3%. In contrast, energy prices have no significant effect on the likelihood to patent. Governmental energy R&D support has a small positive significant effect on patenting activities.

"April 2001." ; At head of title: 107th Congress, 1st session. Committee print. Committee print 107-F. ; Mode of access: Internet.

"Committee print 102-H." ; "July 1991." ; Shipping list no.: 91-513-P. ; Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche. ; At head of title: 102d Congress, 1st session. Committee print. ; Spine title: Compilation of selected acts--energy conservation. ; Mode of access: Internet.

The improvement of China&rsquo ; s new energy automobile technology is one of the most pressing issues for the government and manufacturers, given that the existing new energy automobile subsidy policy is about to be withdrawn completely. Considering that the manufacturer has the private information of the initial technology level of new energy vehicles, its technology can be improved by means of technological innovation. Using principal&ndash ; agent and regulation theory, this paper studies how the government designs incentive contracts to motivate manufacturers to strive to upgrade new energy automotive technology. The study has obtained a quantitative incentive contract under full information and a quantitative screening contract with asymmetric information, which provides an effective reference for the design of government subsidy contracts. It was found that the existence of asymmetric information reduces the expected net utility of the government in incentive projects, and the technology upgrading of low-level manufacturers is insufficient, but will not affect the technology upgrading of high-level manufacturers who will get information rent. The conclusion has good reference value and guiding significance for government policy-making with asymmetric information.