Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2018 Issue 1

Desalination is one of the most promising technologies to mitigate an emerging water crisis. Thermal desalination and reverse osmosis are two of the most widely employed desalination technologies in the world. However, these technologies are energy intensive. In countries like Singapore which lack natural water and energy resources, it is imperative to develop innovative energy efficient technologies to strengthen the energy – water nexus. Clathrate hydrate based desalination (HyDesal) is one such technology. Clathrate hydrate based desalination (HyDesal) process is based on a liquid to solid phase change by employing a suitable guest gas/ gas mixture for the phase change. In the HyDesal process, water molecules form cages around a guest gas/liquid component effectively rejecting salts present in the brine solution at temperatures slightly higher than normal freezing temperature of water. These crystals when dissociated or melted are essentially fresh water and the guest component can be re-used for the process again. While HyDesal process was proposed almost 70 years ago, it was never commercialized primarily due to the high energy requirement for low temperature operation, slow hydrate formation kinetics and inefficient hydrate crystal separation from brine. Recently, we reported an enhanced hydrate formation kinetics in fixed bed reactor with silica sand as porous media when hydrate is formed from gas mixture consisting propane as co-guest. Based on the ability of propane to draw dispersed water from sand bed towards the gas phase for hydrate growth, we proposed a conceptual hydrate based desalination (ColdEn-HyDesal) process employing fixed bed reactor configuration to minimize the energy requirement. The ability of propane as a co-guest to draw water from the silica sand bed can be effectively used for the HyDesal process to address the slow kinetics and effective separation of the hydrate crystals. In this presentation, our state of the art prototype design and optimized process conditions will be presented. With our innovative reactor design, we carried out water recovery experiments to find the suitable guest gas mixture containing propane as co-guest. The other constituent in the gas mixture employed were methane, argon, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Further kinetic experiments were carried out to optimize the silica sand particle size, bed height. Our recent knowledge on enhancing the kinetics of hydrate formation and innovative approach to offset the refrigeration cost for the HyDesal process can be applied to efficiently desalinate seawater to produce potable water. With our innovative reactor design and utilizing waste LNG cold energy, HyDesal can be a sustainable solution for desalination. The ColeEn-HyDesal process utilizing waste LNG cold energy will have a huge impact globally as well due to the expanding number of LNG terminals and the potential to mitigate the potable water issues.

Qatar is a hyper-arid country located in the Middle East suffering extreme water scarcity. More than 99% of municipal demand comes from seawater desalination while existing groundwater reserves are under severe pressure from over-abstraction. Despite these water resource limitations, per capita water demand is amongst the highest globally with recent Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics values placing per capita consumption at roughly 550 L/p.d in 2014. Such high demand could be due to a variety of cultural, social and political factors. The Qatar population is unique in its composition, with roughly 85% of the population being non-citizen residents coming from a diverse set of cultures including a large portion of low-skilled labourers. Therefore, promoting conservation in a consistent and effective manner can be challenging. The high average personal wealth in the country may also lead to greater luxury use of water. Cultural and environmental issues may also play a key role. For instance, the majority of the population are adherents of Islam, which has strict ablution requirements for purification prior to prayer and holds a high regard on cleanliness, which in the extreme weather conditions of the Arabian Gulf leads to increased water use for washing. However, the traditional welfare orientated governance of the Gulf States is frequently regarded as a primary cause for high water consumption prevalent in the region. Qatari citizens are granted tariff free use of domestic water on one dwelling while historically residents have been offered a heavily subsidized flat rate of only 4.40 QAR/m3 ($1.21 USD/m3). In 2015, the countries sole water utility provider, the General Electricity and Water Company (Kahramaa), revised the tariffs to various user groups including residents who now pay a tiered structure which still starts at 4.40 QAR m/3, but rises to 5.40 QAR/m3 after the first 20 m3 and has a final tier rate of 9.40 m3 reflecting a cost close to the true cost for supply. This study evaluated the effectiveness of this tariff restructuring by assessing changes in water consumption before and after the tariff changes across 547 residential properties including citizens and residents; flats and villas, and rented vs owned. Metering data was provided directly by Kahramaa following screening to ensure the same tenant was registered for two full years, one year prior and one year following the price restructuring. Data was analysed using SPSS statistical software (IBM), using non-parametric methods due to non-normality of the data. It was found that a statistically significant reduction in water consumption occurred following the tariff restructuring with a total reduction of 17% observed. Surprisingly, the most significant reductions were observed among Qatari rented flats, with resident rented flats and villas the next most responsive to tariff changes. The responsiveness of users was also assessed based on their previous water consumption by considering three groups, low water users (set as the 10th percentile users), medium water users (set as the median water users) and high water users (set as the 90th percentile users). While response varied significantly among household tenant types, overall it was found low water users responded significantly more to the changes in tariffs. This study highlights the importance of tariff use in Qatar as one effective tool to complement a broad and holistic approach to bring domestic water consumption to more sustainable levels and highlights the role tariff changes have on even those exempt from tariffs, possibly through increased discussion, awareness and feeling of responsibility.

Oil producing companies utilize water injection as a common oil recovery method for decades, especially for offshore fields, where seawater is typically used as inject water. Due to the size and complexity of the injection system and the high salinity of the water (∼55,000 mg/L); several challenges are faced during this process including microbial growth, fouling and corrosion in the pipeline. Biofilms accelerate corrosion in a biologically conditioned metal–solution interface. Oil producing companies including those in Qatar use biocides to disinfect the water and inhibit biofilm formation caused mainly by sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB). However, traditional biocides may induce bacterial resistance and/or be detrimental to environment. In this study we synthesized chitosan/ZnO nanocomposite (CZNCs) and evaluated its antimicrobial activity against SRB biofilm in inject seawater. CZNCs showed stable behavior when exposed to higher salt concentrations of inject water. The inhibition of SRB activity was concentration-dependent and more than 73% and 43% inhibition of sulfate reduction and TOC removal, respectively, was observed at 250 μg/mL CZNCs at 10% initial ZnO loading. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assay indicated obvious damages to the cellular membrane which resulted in release of cytoplasmic materials from the bacterial cells. Significant decrease in concentration of EPS extracts was obtained. This work has demonstrated that the exposure of synthesized CZNCs could cause significant SRB anti-biofouling properties. This is the first ever study of antimicrobial potential of chitosan based biocides for SRB inhibition. We are confident that this work will make the scientific as well as the industrial communities to appreciate the application of nanomaterials based biocides. This is the first ever study of antimicrobial potential of any ENM generally, and chitosan based biocides, particularly, for SRB enriched biofilm inhibition. Taking into account tremendous interest to nanomaterials as antimicrobial agents, we anticipate a major impact from a much better material reported in his paper.

Qatar is known as one of the most arid countries in the world with all of the land characterised as dessert which in geographical terms is defined as territory with no surface water. Despite this unpromising situation people have lived on the Qatar peninsula for thousands of years carefully conserving, harvesting and using the scarce water resources. This paper will argue that a better understanding of the conservation and utilisation of fresh water in the past may have implications for the future development of agriculture and water management in Qatar. All the water resources in the past were fed either directly by scarce and sporadic rainfall events or through sub-surface water (fossil water) which formed a fresh water lens floating above a predominantly saline aquifer. The presence of shallow wadis located throughout the country but particularly near the coast are indicative of the occasionally heavy rainfall.This paper will investigate the methods used to provide water to the traditional settlements and more ancient archaeological sites throughout the country. The paper will begin by reviewing the hydrological structure of the Qatar peninsula and its condition prior to the modern over exploitation of water resources from the 1950's onwards. The paper will pay particular attention to the location of settlements around the northern coast where particularly favourable conditions exist as a result of the north Qatar arch. The settlements of the northern coast employed a variety of water catchment methods including modifying shallow natural depressions (rawdhas) to provide either grazing land or in some cases agricultural zones. In some cases such as at Jifara extensive sunken field systems enclosed within mud brick walls were created fed by a series of shallow wells taking advantage of both rainfall catchment and fossil rainwater. In some cases such as at Ruwayda on the north Qatar coast an existing rawdah appears to have been modified to create a garden with trees enclosed by a fortified masonry wall. A variety of well forms were created including shaft wells where water was accessed by buckets or other receptacles lowered by rope (two example of traditional leather buckets with goat hair rope have been found in archaeological excavations in Qatar) and wide shallow stepped wells which allowed direct access to the water either for humans or animals. In the centre of the country access to water has always been more difficult because the freshwater acquifer has been closest to the surface near the coast. As a consequence the majority of human settlement in Qatar has always been close to the coast. Where inland settlement do exist they are usually located either within or next to some geographical feature such as a wadi or a large depression which will act as a catchment area for rainfall. Such settlements are nearly always supplemented with wells which tend to be larger and much deeper than those on the coast. Examples of inland wells include those associated with gardens at Umm Salal Muhammad. The transformation of inland wells with motorised pumps from the 1950's onwards was one of the causes for the depletion and subsequent salinization of the freshwater aquifer in Qatar.In addition to wells and modified rawdahs a number of other forms of water catchment exist. One of the most surprising water sources is the perennial spring (naba‘a) which following periods of heavy or sustained rainfall may result in water literally spring out from the ground. Another unusual source are fresh water springs located off the coast which were traditionally exploited by fishermen and pearl divers. A rare form of water catchment exists in the Jabal Jassasiya rock formations on the north-east coast of Qatar where the natural contours of the rock are modified to form a cistern blocked on one side by a masonry dam. Masonry dams- possibly of medieval date- have also been documented near Umm Salal Muhammad.

The economic theory provides a rationale for linking the energy demand to a number of variables that might affect it. Starting from that, the empirical analyses specify a number of alternative specifications of the energy demands (water, electricity and fuel). For instance, Zarnikau (2003) suggests three possible forms. First, a linear specification involving the levels of the variables, where the energy demand is a linear function of production factors or of other elements affecting demand. The second form is still a linear specification, but where the log-levels of the variables replace the levels. These two forms are coherent with production (or consumption) functions being additive or multiplicative, respectively, in the underlying factors. The third case focuses on the share equations, most common in a production-based framework, where the share cost of energy, over the total cost of production, depends on the production factors in a linear fashion. We provide an estimation for energy demand and forecasting. We will use the Auto Regressive Distribute Lag (ARDL) specification. The ARDL model might be estimated again by least squares methods. Notably, this specification allows computing short-run elasticities, the parameters, as well as long-run elasticities, which can be obtained by standardizing the coefficients by the autoregressive polynomial, i.e.. A further advantage of the ARDL specifications comes from their coherence with the existence of a long-run equilibrium relation across the modelled variables. In fact, if we assume that the variables of interest are possibly cointegrated (and are thus non-stationary in their levels) and also characterized by short-term dynamic, we might recast the ARDL model into the so-called Error Correction Model representation (ECM) for the series first difference.The estimation approach of such a model might follow the bounds testing approach to cointegration of Pesaran and Shin (1999) and Pesaran et al. (2001). Despite its appealing form, the ECM representation of the ARDL model is appropriate when only a single cointegration relation exist across the modelled variables. A more general structure is that associated with Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) where the dynamic of a set of variables is jointly estimated. The estimation and testing for cointegration might follow the approaches proposed by Johansen (1988, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1995). Moving back to the three approaches listed by Zarnikau (2003), we now briefly discuss the estimation of share equations. This approach focuses on the estimation of the share cost of various inputs with respect to the total cost of production for a specific good. We express energy demand as a function of energy prices, the appropriate price should be a weighted average of the prices of the underlying energy sources (electricity, gas, oil…etc.). The weights might be interpreted as share costs, and therefore the approaches for the estimation of share equations turn out to be relevant in this case, see Fuss (1986). Share equations are nothing more than linear equations for the share of the specific energy source on the total energy demand. However, the crucial aspect to be here considered is the presence of constraints: the shares must be positive and must sum up to one. However, various approaches have been proposed to introduce the appropriate constraints, see for instance the methods by Zellner (1962 and 1963). Further, we can take gasoline price as an indicator for energy price in the demand function. We close this set of methodological approaches by taking into account the use of structural time series methods, see Harvey (1989).Such an approach might be extended with the presence of stochastic cyclical and seasonal components and could represent an alternative approach to classical time series methods.Building on an ARDL specification with a latent trend, Dilaver and Hunt (2011a) provide a scenario analysis for Turkey industrial energy demand and Dilaver and Hunt (2011b) analyze scenarios for residential electricity demand in Turkey. Both studies consider three scenarios, the reference one and two opposite cases representing an increase/decrease in the energy demand due to changes in the production levels, the energy efficiency and the prices. Jiang and Li (2012) provide three different scenarios for the evolution of China energy demand starting from a static long-run relation and using scenarios for the underlying factors. Li et al. (2010) analyze the evolution of energy demand and CO2 emissions in Shanghai under two alternative scenarios, one associated with energy conservation policies. Tajudeen (2015) performs a forecast and scenario analysis for aggregated energy demand. He consider three scenarios, the reference one and two alternatives with increases/decreases in the factors affecting energy demand. Zachariadis and Taibi (2015) provide a scenario analysis for Cyprus energy demand based on different projections of underlying macroeconomic factors as well as in terms of energy efficiency improvements.The estimation and the results wil lbe presented in the conference

A dual stage PRO process has been proposed for power generation from a salinity gradient across a semi-permeable membrane. Both closed-loop and open-loop dual stage PRO system were evaluated using 2 M NaCl and Dead Sea as draw solutions, whereas the feed solution was either fresh water or seawater. The impact of feed salinity gradient resource and feed pressure on the net power generation and water flux were evaluated. The results showed that power density in stage one reached a maximum amount at, but the maximum net power generation occurred at. This result was mainly attributed to the variation of net driving pressure in stage one and two of the PRO process. The dual stage PRO process was found to perform better at high osmotic pressure gradient across the PRO membrane, for example when Dead Sea brine or highly concentrated NaCl was the draw solution. Total power generation in the dual stage PRO process was up to 40% higher than that in the conventional PRO process. This outcome was achieved through harvesting the rest of the energy remaining in the diluted draw solution. Therefore, a dual stage PRO process has the potential of maximizing power generation from a salinity gradient resource by 20%. DSPRO can be combined with desalination plant using seawater brine as the draw solution either in closed-loop or open-loop. This hybridization has multiple applications such as reducing the impact of discharging concentrated brine to sea, energy storage, and increase the recovery rate of the desalination. Power generation by DSPRO will reduce the energy consumption by the desalination processes. Waste heat from power plants can be used for the regeneration of the draw solution in the closed-loop DSPRO. Process modelling has been performed and shown promising results for DSPRO application for power generation. The impact of module configuration, area and length, with relation to draw solution concentration have shown to have significant impact on osmotically driven processes and should be counted for.

Modeling the diffusion of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in their social, political and economic context is crucial to help policymakers assess which policies may best support adoption. Current models of renewable energy adoption [1, 2, 3, 4] assume regulatory and incentive frameworks that do not apply to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, where energy tariffs are strongly subsidized, tax credits are not viable due to the lack of personal income tax, and support for distributed generation through grid access policies such as the Feed-in Tariff and Net Metering is not available. The goal of this study is to address this gap by analyzing the impact of home ownership, the falling cost of PV, the reduction of electricity subsidies, the introduction of a carbon tax, and the diffusion of innovation on the residential adoption of solar PV technologies in Qatar. Our objective is to develop a social simulation platform that helps policymakers and other stakeholders assess the optimal regulatory framework to promote the adoption of building-integrated PV systems in Qatar and other countries which share a similar geographical, political, economic and social context. We present an agent-based model for residential adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the state of Qatar as a case study for the Arabian Gulf Region. Agents in the model are defined as households. Each household corresponds to a dwelling in the Al Rayyan municipality of Qatar that is either owned (by citizens) or rented (by expatriates). The objective of the model is to evaluate PV adoption in terms of these two household cohorts under diverse regulatory and incentive scenarios. In the present state of affairs, only Qatari citizens can own property in Al Rayyan and Qatari households are exempt from electricity charges. Therefore, home owners are Qataris who have free electricity, while renters tend to be expatriates who pay for electricity. The more competitive the cost of electricity from residential PV systems is as compared to the electricity tariff, the more likely are household agents to adopt solar PV. Several factors can contribute to make the cost of electricity from residential PV more competitive, including:the falling cost of PV due to increasing technology maturitythe reduction of subsidies for electricity and the gas used for electricity productionthe introduction of a carbon taxthe extension of the electricity tariff to Qatari householdsthe neighborhood effect, which implements peer effects on the diffusion of PV innovation as a percent discount on residential PV cost.We compute solar PV adoption as resource limited exponential growth. Households adopt solar PV with a probability established by the logistic function in (1), where L is a scaling constant, e is the natural logarithm, x is the cost of electricity from residential PV systems and k is a parameter which determines the slope of the adoption curve. We set L = 1 to normalize the output of the logistic function as a probability. For the k parameter, we select a value (k = 0.59) that in the null-hypothesis scenario yields a PV market share that is equivalent to the innovator cohort of adopters in Rogers’ adoption/innovation curve (2.5%) [5]. According to Rogers, “innovators are active information seekers about new ideas”, who are close to the scientific community and other innovators, have financial liquidity, and are willing to take high risks to pursue their vision. The rationale for restricting adopters to innovators in the null hypothesis scenario is that only eco-warriors with financial means and high technology awareness would adopt in the absence of incentives, with high PV costs.(1) f (x) = L / 1+e^( − k∗x) At each simulation tick, each household agent that has not adopted yet, is presented with the opportunity of doing so. Adoption is determined randomly according to the output of the logistic function in (2): a random probability p is generated, and if the probability of adoption as calculated by (1) is greater or equal to p, adoption occurs.We analyze three alternative simulation scenarios:Scenario 1 — Business as usual: no measures are introduced to incentivize PV, the neighborhood effect is active, and the price of PV falls due to increasing technology maturityScenario 2 — 40% of gas and electricity subsidies are curtailed, the neighborhood effect is active, a carbon tax of $8/tCO2e is introduced, the price of PV falls due to increasing technology maturity, and citizens continue to have free electricityScenario 3 — same as scenario 2, with the variant that citizens too pay for electricity. As baseline, we establish a null hypothesis scenario, which is the same as scenario 1, except that the price of PV does not fall due to increasing technology maturity. Details of the simulation results are provided in the attached file to this submission. Our study suggests that Qatar's residential PV adoption is strongly promoted by the falling cost of PV and can be further facilitated through the reduction of electricity subsidies and the extension of the electricity tariff to Qatari households, which are currently exempt. The introduction of a carbon tax can also play a role in accelerating residential PV adoption, if above $8 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. The ensuing PV adoption rates would help facilitate the national targets of 2% electricity production from solar energy by 2020 and 20% by 2030. References: [1] Zhao, J., E. Mazhari, N. Celik, Y.-J. Son. “Hybrid agent-based simula- tion for policy evaluation of solar power generation systems”. Simulation Modeling Practice and Theory 19, (2011): 2189–2205. [2] Paidipati, J., L. Frantzis, H. Sawyer, A. Kurrasch. “Rooftop photovoltaics market penetration scenarios”. Navigant Consulting, Inc., for NREL: February, (2008). [3] Drury, E., P. Denholm, R. Margolis. “Modeling the US rooftop photo- voltaics market”. In National Solar Conference 2010, 17–22 May 2010, Phoenix, USA, (2010). [4] Graziano, M. and K. Gillingham. “Spatial patterns of solar photovoltaic system adoption: the influence of neighbors and the built environment”. Journal of Economic Geography 15, (2015): 815–839. [5] Rogers, E. M.. Diffusion of innovations. New York, Free Press of Glencoe, RS(N), (2010)

Aquifers are important sources of water in arid areas, where no surface water exist. Estimation of groundwater recharge from rainfall is a big challenge for hydrogeologists, due to the high uncertainty involved. It is even harder to estimate recharge in arid areas, due to high variability of meteorological parameters in space and time. Unlike recharge in humid and sub-humid areas, recharge in arid areas occurs indirectly after rainfall-runoff accumulates in low lands such as land depressions and recharges the aquifer. A new method for recharge estimation in arid areas has proposed in this study based on soil-water budget model and utilizing geoprocessing tools in GIS. The method uses Digital Elevation Model (DEM), land-cover and rainfall distribution to estimate runoff accumulation in depressions. The soil-water budget model is then applied to estimate the groundwater recharge in areas of runoff accumulation. The geoprocessing tools in GIS such as flow direction and flow accumulation in Spatial Analyst were utilised. The application of the proposed methodology in GIS makes it easy to cover the entire area of study, and to run maps algebra. The method was applied to the entire area of Qatar. The proposed methodology was applied on Qatar as a case study. The spatial resolution of raster maps was 350 by 350 m and the temporal resolution is one day. Data requirements for this study include daily records of rainfall, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for topography, soil-moisture holding capacity, land-use map and potential evapotranspiration. Recharge is calculated for each cell and summed to provide the total amount. The proposed methodology was applied on the entire country of Qatar using the hydrological year 2013-2014 and daily time steps. This year was selected because enough daily rainfall data was available for this period, with a good coverage of the entire country. Results obtained in this study for the hydrological year 2013/2014 show the total groundwater recharge is approximately 14 million m3, and concentrated more in the northern part of Qatar. The method can be applied on any arid region.

This paper deals with the modeling of a regional energy system, based on the example of Qatar, over a time horizon of 35 years or more, taking into account the possible transition toward a smart city paradigm of the Doha region and the probable climate regime that could result from COP21 and the coming rounds of international climate negotiations. The impact on the energy system of a transition toward smart city could take many forms: (i) by providing two-way communications between consumers and electricity producers, the smart city will foster demand response and distributed energy resource management; (ii) new forms of demand for energy services will materialize in the transport, housing and service sectors that could contribute to lower the environmental footprint of the energy sector; (iii) the smart-grid connection of distributed energy resources and the possibility to provide secondary reserve through grid storage and distributed system service, like e.g. reactive power compensation, will facilitate the penetration of variable renewable energy in the energy system. Qatar is the world-class leader in the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG). It has also access to crude oil reserves. As the economy of Qatar developed, as in other Gulf countries, the energy system expanded assuming an unlimited supply of very low cost fossil fuels. However, the very economic success of the gas and oil exporting countries in the Gulf region is starting to impose a limit on this form of development of the energy system. The share of gas that is used in the region and thus not available for export is increasing sharply. The local pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels in transport, residential, service and industry sectors, has to be curbed. Finally, at COP21 in Paris, more than 160 nations, including Qatar, have agreed to reduce GHG emissions in order to reach a goal of limiting the temperature change at the end of 21st century at 1.5oC. At COP21 Qatar has made a commitment to reduce its per-capita emission level, which is one of the highest in the world. To deal with these challenges, the Gulf countries count on a substitution from fossil fuel source to variable renewable ones (as well as some extent to nuclear power generation in UAE, KSA and Iran). This is exemplified by the location of IRENA headquarters[1] in Abu Dhabi, inaugurated in May 2015. Indeed, harnessing wind and solar energy sources seems promising in the region, with some caveats due to intermittency of wind blowing and sand storms reducing the efficiency of solar panels. There is another game changing phenomenon represented by the drive toward smart cities. The cities in Gulf countries are very modern and they are ready to embrace the smart city paradigm and concept. Abu Dhabi and more generally the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have announced pilot projects for fully integrated “smart-city” districts. The development of the “internet of things”, which characterizes smart cities, will translate for the energy system into a development of smart-grid connected, distributed energy resources and this should help tremendously the penetration of variable renewable energy sources. The model ETEM-SC[2] used in this research has been designed to help in assessing the policies that could be used to define, up to the horizon 2050, an environmentally friendly energy system in Qatar. ETEM-SC is a technology rich cost-efficiency model, which permits an exploration of the future of the regional energy system under different environmental and economic constraints. The model is derived from the shell-model ETEM (Energy-Technology-Environment-Model), developed at ORDECSYS[3]. This shell has a structure of a linear program, as in MARKAL, MESSAGE or TIMES, with an extensive description of technology and energy choices in the region into consideration. The new additions that have been made for our purpose (SC for Smart Cities) concern: (i) the modeling of constraints and options at the power distribution level, due to the introduction of smart grids, distributed energy resource and demand response; (ii) the consideration of the impact on demand for energy services of the development of a smart city environment, and (iii) the explicit consideration of uncertainty in the scenario building, through the use of stochastic programming and robust optimization techniques. Some technical aspects of these modeling advances have been described in two parent papers (Babonneau et al. (2016a) and (2016b)). The present research will focus on the description of the scenarios for Qatar that result from the use of this model. These scenarios are based on publicly available data and should not be considered as a representation of the energy policy of the state of Qatar. The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the potential offered by ETEM-SC to assess the possible penetration of variable renewable energy in regional energy systems with smart-city development, in order to reduce drastically the GHG emissions. [1] The International Renewable Energy Agency. www.irena.org [2] Energy Technology Environment Model-Smart-Cities. [3] See www.ordecsys.com for details.

See e.g., https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/es_20170531_hahnregulation.pdfPower to the People: A New Trend in Regulation Robert Hahn, Robert Metcalfe and Florian Rundhammer* * Mr. Hahn is Professor and Director of Economics at the Smith School, University of Oxford. Mr. Metcalfe is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago. Mr. Rundhammer is a doctoral student in economics at Georgia State University. We would like to thank Jonathan Ashley, Harry Bush, Paul Joskow, Clement Lapeyre, Stephen Littlechild, Matthew O'Keefe, Cathryn Ross, Anna Rossington, Jon Stern and Dale Whittington for very helpful feedback. This research was funded by Ofwat and by the Smith School at Oxford. The authors, and not the institutions with which they are affiliated, are responsible for the findings of this research and any remaining errors. © 2017 by the authors. All rights reserved. Abstract This paper traces a new development in regulation that encourages utilities to engage more directly with their customers. We make four contributions: First, we perform the most comprehensive analysis to date of how regulators are using customer engagement, and offer a simple model for understanding different customer engagement initiatives. Second, we review assessments of customer engagement. We find that there are no quantitative, empirically robust assessments of the effectiveness of customer engagement as a regulatory tool. Third, we develop two detailed case studies of an energy regulator and a water regulator that are in the forefront of customer engagement efforts. We find that there is no direct link between the engagement strategy used and the economic incentives received by a firm. Finally, we propose a framework for improving the customer engagement process. The new framework relies on microeconomics, modern tools of program evaluation, and supplying the regulated firm with direct incentives to do customer engagement.