Traditionally, capacity has been procured to meet system peak load with no formal regard for flexibility characteristics. However, this planning paradigm is shifting, with increasing variable energy resource penetration, to consider system flexibility requirements in addition to peak capacity....

Analyzing US economic and foreign aid data from 1967 to 2007, this paper investigates whether adverse economic and financial conditions are negatively linked to official development assistance (ODA). It finds empirical evidence that US ODA has tended to decline as its economic conditions worsen....