Whose Power Gets Cut? : Using High-Frequency Satellite Images to Measure Power Supply Irregularity
In many parts of the developing world, access to electricity is uneven and inconsistent, characterized by frequent and long hours of power outages. Many countries now engage in systematic load shedding because of persistent power shortages. When an...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/125911498758273922/Whose-power-gets-cut-using-high-frequency-satellite-images-to-measure-power-supply-irregularity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27634 |
| Summary: | In many parts of the developing world,
access to electricity is uneven and inconsistent,
characterized by frequent and long hours of power outages.
Many countries now engage in systematic load shedding
because of persistent power shortages. When and where
electricity is provided can have important impacts on
welfare and growth. But quantifying those impacts is
difficult because utility-level data on power outages are
rarely available and not always reliable. This paper
introduces a new method of tracking power outages from outer
space. This measure identifies outage-prone areas by
detecting excess fluctuations in light outputs. To develop
these measures, the study processed the complete historical
archive of sub-orbital Defense Meteorological Satellite
Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS)
nighttime imagery captured over South Asia on every night
since 1993. The analysis computes annual estimates of the
Power Supply Irregularity index for all 600,000 villages in
India from 1993 to 2013. The Power Supply Irregularity index
measures are consistent with ground-based measures of power
supply reliability from the Indian Human Development Survey,
and with feeder-level outage data from one of the largest
utilities in India. The study’s methods open new
opportunities to study the determinants of power outages as
well as their impacts on welfare. |
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