Electrokit: Power Utility Toolkit-Electricity Loss Reduction

The Electrokit is an initiative created by the IDB to strengthen transformation and continuous improvement of electric utilities in the LAC region. The Electrokit is organized in 16 activities that are common to most electricity utilities. This publication presents the indicators and best practices related to Electricity Loss Reduction. The aim of the toolkit is to provide power utilities, policy and decision-makers access to best practices, current trends, and expertise to: (i) identify challenges, develop a strategy and action plan for addressing them; and (ii) support utilities to be more sustainable, efficient, improve customer experience and accelerate innovation to stay ahead of the rapidly sector transformation.

Electrokit: Power Utility Toolkit–Quality of Technical Service

The Electrokit is an initiative created by the IDB to strengthen transformation and continuous improvement of electric utilities in the LAC region. The Electrokit is organized in 16 activities that are common to most electricity utilities. This publication presents the indicators and best practices related to Quality of Technical Service. The aim of the toolkit is to provide power utilities, policy and decision-makers access to best practices, current trends, and expertise to: (i) identify challenges, develop a strategy and action plan for addressing them; and (ii) support utilities to be more sustainable, efficient, improve customer experience and accelerate innovation to stay ahead of the rapidly sector transformation.

Electrokit: Power Utility Toolkit-The Overview: Best Practices in Electric Power Distribution Companies in the Latin America and Caribbean Region

The Electrokit is an initiative created by the IDB to strengthen transformation and continuous improvement of electric utilities in the LAC region. It follows international standards that characterize and evaluate utilities based on indicators and best practices. The Electrokit is organized in 16 activities that are common to most electricity utilities. The aim of the toolkit is to provide power utilities, policy and decision-makers access to best practices, current trends, and expertise to: (i) identify challenges, develop a strategy and action plan for addressing them; and (ii) support utilities to be more sustainable, efficient, improve customer experience and accelerate innovation to stay ahead of the rapidly sector transformation. The Overview presents the main objectives of the toolkit, the structure of its areas and activities, and a guide on how companies could design an action plan.

Infrastructure Vandalism and Protection in a Vulnerable Zimbabwean Environment: Review of the Structural Materialism Theory

Many institutions are facing or have faced challenges related to vandalism of equipment and property in Zimbabwe. This criminal phenomenon is not only restricted and peculiar to this country but is experienced in other regions of the world, however with variations. The purpose of the study is to explore and unpack the various dimensions of infrastructure vandalism by gazing at Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) a power utility in Zimbabwe. The level of vandalism has been increasing unabated resulting in in a multitude of undesirable effects on the power utility and the economy as a whole. A plethora of stimulants have been seen to be triggering and sustaining the theft and vandalism of the infrastructure which targets copper conductors, copper windings, oils and the poles in the majority of cases. The study adopted the mixed method approach due to its technical advantage of converging and merging qualitative and quantitative data in order to provide comprehensive results and produce new knowledge claims. This methodological framework was guided by the structural materialism theory which is an off shot of the critical criminology perspective. Thus, the study found out that infrastructure vandalism is representative of a broader dysfunctional socioeconomic system of a country riddled by poverty, unemployment and the absence of mores and values within communities. Consequently, the levels of infrastructure vandalism have spiraled to unprecedented levels. The study concludes that the government is failing to sufficiently address the macro-economic fundamentals as way of discouraging citizens from engaging in crime and criminality while the traditional leaders are not being respected yet they have a significant role they can play in promoting the stability and serenity of communities. In view of these conclusions the study recommends that all stakeholders contribute towards the protection of all infrastructure and migrate to digitalize the protection of such infrastructure as well as promulgation of appropriate pieces of legislation.

Optimal asset allocation in retirement planning: threshold-based utility maximization

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to modify the shape of utility functions traditionally used in expected utility theory (EUT) to derive optimal retirement saving decisions. Inspired by current reference point based approaches, the authors argue that utility functions with jumps or kinks at certain threshold points might very well be rational.Design/methodology/approachThe authors suggest an alternative to typical utility functions used in EUT, to be applied in the context of retirement saving decisions. The authors argue that certain elements that are used to model biases in behavioral models should–in the context of optimal retirement saving decisions–be considered “rational” and hence be included in a normative setting as well. The authors compare the optimal asset allocation derived under such utility functions with results under traditional power utility.FindingsThe authors find that the considered threshold levels can have a significant impact on the optimal investment decision for some individuals. In particular, the authors show that a much riskier investment than under EUT can become optimal if some level of income is secured by a social security and a significant portion of the distribution of terminal wealth lies below this level.Originality/valueContrary to previous work, this model is especially designed to assess the question of optimal product choice/asset allocation in the specific setting of retirement planning and from a normative point of view. In this regard, the authors first motivate the use of several thresholds and then apply this approach in a capital market model with stochastic stocks and stochastic interest rates to two illustrative investment alternatives.