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The purpose of this paper is to examine how active consumers, i.e. consumers that can inter-temporally shift their load, can influence electricity prices. As demonstrated in this paper, inter-temporal load shifting can induce negative electricity prices, a recurring phenomenon on power exchanges.

The paper presents a novel electricity-market model assuming a nodal-pricing, energy-only spot market with active consumers. This study formulates an economic equilibrium problem as a linear program and uses an established six-node case study to compare equilibrium prices of a model with inflexible demand to a model with flexible demand of active consumers.

This study illustrates that temporal coupling of hourly market clearing through load shifting of active consumers can cause negative electricity prices that are not observed in a model with ceteris paribus inflexible demand. In such situations, where compared to the case of inflexible demand more flexibility is available in the system, negative electricity prices signal lower total system costs. These negative prices result from the use of demand flexibility, which, however, cannot be fully exploited due to limited transmission capacities, respectively, loop-flow restrictions.

Literature indicates that negative electricity prices result from lacking flexibility. The results illustrate that active consumers and their additional flexibility can lead to negative electricity prices in temporally coupled markets, which in general contributes to increased system efficiency as well as increased use of renewable energy sources. These findings extend existing research in both the area of energy flexibility and causes for negative electricity prices. Therefore, policymakers should be aware of such (temporal coupling) effects and, e.g. continue to allow negative electricity prices in the future that can serve as investment signals for active consumers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the construction and operation of underground gas storage (UGS) facilities, under the prism of the recent rise in energy prices. The focus is on developing energy markets interconnected with gas producers through pipelines and has access to liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in parallel.

Through a focal market in Europe, the authors estimate the economic value for both stakeholders and consumers by introducing a methodology, appropriately adjusted to the specificities of the domestic energy market. The Transmission System Operator, the Energy Market Regulator, the Energy Exchange and Eurostat are the main data sources for our calculations and conclusions.

The authors investigate the perspectives of UGS facilities, identifying financial challenges considering specific energy market conditions which are barriers to new storage facilities. Nevertheless, the energy price rocketing coupled with the security of gas supply issues, which arose in autumn 2021 and were continuing in 2022 due to the Russia–Ukraine crisis, highlight that gas storage remains, at least for the midterm, at the core of European priorities.

The paper emphasizes on developing markets toward green transition, proposing tangible policy recommendations regarding gas storage. A new methodological approach is proposed, appropriate to quantify the economic value of UGSs in such markets. Last, a mix of energy policy options is suggested which include regulatory reforms, support schemes and new energy infrastructures that could make the gas storage investments economically viable.

For some years now, Cameroon has seen a significant increase in its electricity demand, and this need is bound to grow within the next few years owing to the current economic growth and the ambitious projects underway. Therefore, one of the state's priorities is the mastery of electricity demand. In order to get there, it would be helpful to have reliable forecasting tools. This study proposes a novel version of the discrete grey multivariate convolution model (ODGMC(1,N)).

Specifically, a linear corrective term is added to its structure, parameterisation is done in a way that is consistent to the modelling procedure and the cumulated forecasting function of ODGMC(1,N) is obtained through an iterative technique.

Results show that ODGMC(1,N) is more stable and can extract the relationships between the system's input variables. To demonstrate and validate the superiority of ODGMC(1,N), a practical example drawn from the projection of electricity demand in Cameroon till 2030 is used. The findings reveal that the proposed model has a higher prediction precision, with 1.74% mean absolute percentage error and 132.16 root mean square error.

These interesting results are due to (1) the stability of ODGMC(1,N) resulting from a good adequacy between parameters estimation and their implementation, (2) the addition of a term that takes into account the linear impact of time t on the model's performance and (3) the removal of irrelevant information from input data by wavelet transform filtration. Thus, the suggested ODGMC is a robust predictive and monitoring tool for tracking the evolution of electricity needs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation, energy consumption and patents on environmental technologies on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) recorded in European countries for a period of nine years (2010–2018).

Two empirical methods were integrated into the theoretical approach developed based on the analysis of the current scientific framework. Multiple linear regression, an extended version of the OLS model, and a non-causal analysis as a robustness method, Dumitrescu–Hurlin, were used to achieve the proposed research objective.

Digitalisation described by the number of individual Internet users and patents on environmental technologies determines the amount of GHG in Europe, and economic growth continues to have a significant effect on the amount of emissions, as well as the consumption of renewable energy. European countries are not framed in well-established patterns, but the economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy have an impact on the amount of GHG in one way or another. In many European countries, the amount of GHGs is decreasing as a result of economic growth, changes in the energy field and digitalisation. The positive influence of economic growth on climate neutrality depends on its degree of sustainability, while patents have the same conditional effect of their translation into environmentally efficient technologies.

This study has a number of limitations which derive, first of all, from the lack of digitalisation indicators. The missing data restricted the inclusion in the analysis of variables relevant to the description of the European digitalisation process, also obtaining conclusive results on the effects of digitalisation on GHG emissions.

A similar analysis of the relationship among the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy is less common in the literature. Also, the results can be inspirational in the sphere of macroeconomic policy.

The digital platform (DP) develops through a network capability that combines technological infrastructure and resources to provide goods or services. This article investigates how institutions influence the development of the DP entrepreneurship ecosystem (EE) in a developing economy context.

An exploratory qualitative approach based on interviews with 33 DP business executives in Nigeria was the chosen research method. The interview method took the form of face-to-face, telephone and zoom video meetings, depending on the respective preferences of the participants. The research philosophy is based on interpretivism. Hence, the collected data were analyzed thematically and interpreted to make sense of the business executives' perspectives about the DP landscape as well as its institutional enablers and barriers.

The findings reveal institutional elements that are either too underdeveloped or weak to nurture an effective DP system resulting in high cost of doing business. A key cultural challenge is obtaining an honest workforce and managers. Also, there is lack of effective policies, weak regulation, multiple taxation and foreign competition, which affects local digital firms. Although cultural diversity has several merits, differences in cultural values and languages create marketing and promotion challenges. Moreover, the low level of digital literacy between Generation Z, Millennials and others, such as Baby Boomers and Generation X, poses a significant challenge concerning customer segmentation.

Research on digital technologies, the complexity of platform architectures and institutional logic has attracted interest in recent years. This article explored the institutional logic influencing the development of DP ecosystem (providing knowledge about EE in a developing world context). Despite the institutional challenges, there are multiple opportunities for Nigerian DP sector to flourish in the fast-growing economy.

The value of this article is related to how micro-, meso- and macro-institutional forces combine to support or become barriers to the development of the DP ecosystem, especially in developing economies where digitalization is creeping into every business sector and society.

Public-private partnership (PPP) power projects are associated with varying risk factors. This paper aims to develop a fuzzy quantitative risk allocation model (QRAM) to guide decision-making on risk allocation in PPP power projects in Ghana.

A total of 67 risk factors and 9 risk allocation criteria were established from literature and ranked in a two-round Delphi survey using questionnaires. The fuzzy synthetic evaluation method was used in developing the risk allocation model.

The model’s output variable is the risk allocation proportions between the public body and private body based on their capability to manage the risk factors. Out of the 37 critical risk factors, the public sector was allocated 12 risk factors with proportions = 50%, while the private sector was allocated 25 risk factors with proportions = 50%.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research presents the first attempt in Ghana at endeavouring to develop a QRAM for PPP power projects. There is confidence in the model to efficiently allocate risks emanating from PPP power projects.

Since 2009 Swedish municipalities may apply the Act on System of Choice (LOV) in, among other things, eldercare. About half of the 290 Swedish municipalities have chosen this within home-care services for older citizens, thus creating conditions for a welfare mix where private and public providers compete. Some of these municipalities later made decisions to abolish LOV. This article aims to analyse the arguments put forward by municipal politicians to abolish LOV and discusses if the case of abandoning LOV represents a case of re-municipalization.

Qualitative method was used to analyse decision protocols and media materials from 20 Swedish municipalities that had abolished LOV in home-care services.

The article shows that politics and ideology seem to have only a limited significance in abolishing LOV. The most important arguments found in the empirical materials were instead pragmatic and related to the transaction costs: in smaller municipalities about the weak position of private providers and in larger municipalities about reported cases of welfare crime and extensive needs to control and review. In smaller municipalities, LOV was replaced by public monopoly and in larger municipalities by other types of procurements.

With its focus on eldercare in party-dominated municipalities, the article adds knowledge to the literature on drivers of re-municipalization but also discusses possible delimitations of the concept of re-municipalization.

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the supply and demand of marketing and communication consulting services and evaluate actual and perceived gaps.

The paper uses two different datasets to assess the gap. The supply database comes from desk research carried out in the province of Bergamo (n. 159 consulting agencies). The demand dates are the results of 100 structured interviews with local companies that requested marketing and communication consulting services both inside and outside the province.

Findings show that there is no significant shortage in local service supply. Nonetheless, a limited gap exists between the provision of specific services and their overall quality. Conversely, the perceived gap is wider, leading to an impression of scarce availability – a notion disproven by the analysis of the actual supply.

The study suggests that local agencies may overcome their “myopic” attitude and need to increase their visibility, competencies and expertise by investing in these areas and improving networking.

There are no previous studies that compare the supply and demand for marketing and communication consulting services. The paper also provides insights into actual and perceived gaps in a hypercompetitive environment.

This research aims to explore the role of awareness of harm and responsibility for environmental protection in reducing pollution from single-use plastic bags (SPBs) in coastal communities (CCs). To this end, this study develops and tests a unique model that explains residents’ intention to reduce the use of SPBs in coastal regions.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from 721 coastal residents in Vietnam. Structural equation modeling and moderation analysis were applied to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results show that awareness of the impact of SPBs on the environment and human health and awareness of the responsibility to protect the coastal environment significantly affect attitudes and intentions to reduce the use of SPBs. Moreover, such awareness of responsibility strengthens the attitude-intention relationship.

The findings suggest that CCs should not receive a lower priority in campaigns and efforts to reduce SPBs. In this regard, providing residents with free environmentally friendly bags and education programs on the impact of SPBs could be implemented.

CCs are directly impacted by pollution from SPBs. However, little is known about how this affects their polluting behavior. This study shows that CCs are not immune to polluting behaviors and that SPBs can be significant among residents. It also demonstrates that awareness of harm and feeling responsible for the environment are essential drivers of (intended) sustainable behaviors.

This study aims to investigate the tourism stakeholders' opinions about developing smart tourism (ST) in the West Bank, Palestine. This research fulfils intriguing gaps in the literature on stakeholders' perceptions and views on developing ST in the West Bank, Palestine.

The research study employed a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews with nineteen respondents. All data collected were in April and May 2022.

The findings show that the understanding of ST-related stakeholders in the West Bank is mainly linked to information communication and technology, digitalisation, and online use of technology within the tourism industry. Moreover, the results show the high potential of developing the ST industry in the West Bank. However, this study revealed that challenges could affect the West Bank's development at different levels, such as managerial, technological, awareness, public sector restrictions, infrastructural, financial and political challenges.

This research has some shortcomings. The first restriction of this study was the political restrictions and the checkpoints, which limited the reach of some of the participants who reside in Jerusalem or other cities outside of the West Bank, which delayed the time of the interviews or converted it to be done through a digital platform. Secondly, the sample of this study was small in tourism stakeholders in the West Bank.

To the author's knowledge, this paper is the first on ST from the stakeholders' perspectives. Therefore, this study has set the first step in closing the existing gap in the literature.