What is in a Meter? A Qualitative Exploration into the Implementation of Electricity Metering Across Mumbai Communities Using Normalisation Process Theory.

Metering is fundamental in the efficient operation of electricity networks, as meters facilitate controlled usage and improve health and well-being. However, across the Global South, meters have often been found to be lacking or not fit for purpose. Therefore, this study sought to determine residents' perceptions and access to electricity metering across a community in Mumbai, with the goal of developing recommendations to support the implementation of meters in the future. Fifty semi-structured interviews were conducted by phone, with participants from different areas and socioeconomic classes, within Greater Mumbai. The sample consisted of 20 low-income, 20 middle-income, and 10 high-income participants. The Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) was used to inform the interview schedule and to organise the thematic analysis. Meter accessibility and location was variable across the participant groups, as was the education and awareness of metering technology. Socio-political factors were found to directly affect the use of meters, specifically in the low-income group. The high cost associated with metering was a prominent finding; with a preconception that introducing meters would only increase utility expenditure. Future work should focus around ensuring meters are easy to use, practical and accessible to all residents and supporting education programmes around how to use a meter and how they can reduce utility expenditure. The cost of meters should also be investigated, to establish that the costs, associated with introducing new meters, are not passed disproportionately to consumers. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43477-022-00059-y.

The potential of urban distributed solar energy in transition economies: The case of Beirut city.

In this paper, using Lebanon's capital, Beirut, as a case study, a methodology is proposed to assess the potential for solar photovoltaics (PV) in urban areas incorporating both economic and non-economic factors. Utilizing a rich spatial dataset of solar irradiation augmented with electricity bills at the building level, the cost and benefit of installing rooftop PV systems for each building is estimated. Additionally, incentives and barriers for adopting those systems are investigated using a probabilistic choice model. The results show that Beirut city has a potential for distributed rooftop solar PV to be between 195 and 295 MWp. However, adoption rates are low at 0.49% and 1.23% for residential and commercial buildings, respectively, reflecting the limitation of financial incentives alone to promote the deployment of distributed renewable energy systems in transition economies. The impact of different incentive policy instruments and the role of solar PV in today's economic crisis in Lebanon is analyzed. The biggest impact was achieved through removing (or lowering) electricity tariff subsidy, although this option remains highly constrained by political calculus. We argue that the Lebanese government should fast-track and implement the required legal framework to facilitate and incentivize distributed power generation from renewable sources to promote both green energy and its financial resilience. The proposed modeling framework together with the results obtained in this study will have important implications for energy policy makers in Lebanon and other transition economies.

Asymmetric bias in perception of facial affect among Roman and Arabic script readers.

The asymmetric chimeric faces test is used frequently as an indicator of right hemisphere involvement in the perception of facial affect, as the test is considered free of linguistic elements. Much of the original research with the asymmetric chimeric faces test was conducted with subjects reading left-to-right Roman script, i.e., English. As readers of right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, demonstrated a mixed or weak rightward bias in judgements of facial affect, the influence of habitual scanning direction was thought to intersect with laterality. We administered the asymmetric chimeric faces test to 1239 adults who represented a range of script experience, i.e., Roman script readers (English and French), Arabic readers, bidirectional readers of Roman and Arabic scripts, and illiterates. Our findings supported the hypothesis that the bias in facial affect judgement is rooted in laterality, but can be influenced by script direction. Specifically, right-handed readers of Roman script demonstrated the greatest mean leftward score, and mixed-handed Arabic script readers demonstrated the greatest mean rightward score. Biliterates showed a gradual shift in asymmetric perception, as their scores fell between those of Roman and Arabic script readers, basically distributed in the order expected by their handedness and most often used script. Illiterates, whose only directional influence was laterality, showed a slight leftward bias.