Academic literature on the topic 'New England Energy Congress'

Early in the American Revolution, British and American forces in New England fought to secure natural resources more than they battled each other. By extracting wool, hay, and firewood from a hinterland that barely sustained the civilian population, the Continental Congress and Massachusetts governments exercised powers that would come to shape Americans' relationship with their environment.

AbstractThe National Evangelical Anglican Congress which took place at Keele University in April 1967 is widely acknowledged as a major watershed for the evangelical movement in the Church of England. This paper offers a fresh analysis of the event, based on detailed archival research. It argues that there was a decisive attitudinal shift at the congress, driven especially by the younger generation – from piety to policy, conservatism to radicalism, homogeneity to diversity, and exclusivism to ecumenism. It shows how in these four areas the Keele Congress established a new agenda for Anglican evangelicalism, a legacy which still continues today.

Just as the government invested in oil and gas, it must now invest in new energy sources. In a sense, Americans need history to repeat itself. This Note suggests that Congress should amend the United States Tax Code to further subsidize the renewable energy industry. Congress should use subsidies historically available to the oil and gas industries as a model in its amendments. These subsidies serve as a model for promoting the renewable energy industry because such subsidies were fundamental in facilitating the oil and gas industries’ dominance today. Ultimately, Congress must further subsidize the renewable energy industry to avoid the environmental and economic consequences of an economy based on traditional sources of energy. This Note recommends that renewable energy dominance is possible by amending the tax code to subsidize the renewable energy industry using the same subsidization rationales applied to the oil and gas industries.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-76).
Access to straightforward yet robust tools to quantify the impact of renewable energy resources on air emissions from fossil fuel power plants is important to governments aiming to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gases at least cost. It is also important to renewable energy developers seeking to gather support and facilitate permitting of their projects. Due to the inherent complexities of the electric power system, it is difficult to determine the effects of renewable energy generators on emissions from fossil fuel power plants. Additionally, because there are a variety of methods for calculating "avoided emissions," which differ in complexity and transparency, and which provide dissimilar results, there remains uncertainty in estimating avoided emissions. Guidance from government authorities on which method to use is too flexible to provide a robust framework to enable decision makers to evaluate environmental solutions. This thesis informs decision making first by highlighting important issues to consider when analyzing the impact of renewable energy resources on emissions, then by reviewing current guidance on the matter, and finally by comparing existing methods of calculating avoided emissions. Several methods are further evaluated by applying them to potential offshore wind energy resources in New England, including the proposed Cape Wind project.
(cont.) This analysis suggests that the potential avoided emissions of the Cape Wind project are significant, though lower than previously stated by the project developers and supporters. The usefulness of the available literature on calculating avoided emissions suggests that governments and electric industry analysts should continue to share information on different methods and work together to revise the current guidance. To further increase analytical capacity, government agencies should collect, organize, and disseminate more data on the electricity system including power plant operations and emissions. The ability to accurately quantify avoided emissions will help policymakers design programs with the right incentives to reduce emissions from power plants and will enable them to describe the environmental benefits of doing so. To facilitate development of clean energy resources, it is proposed that more weight is given to environmental benefits such as avoided emissions in environmental impact assessments. To assist in reducing emissions, it is recommended that renewable energy and energy efficiency resources are allowed to participate more directly in emissions markets.
by Michael Peter Berlinski.
S.M.

The transportation sector is a largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the U.S., accounting for 28.6% of all 2016 emissions, the majority of which come from the passenger vehicle fleet [1,2]. One major technology that is being investigated by researchers, planners, and policy makers to help lower the emissions from the transportation sector is the plug-in electric vehicle (PEV). The focus of this work is to investigate and model the impacts of increased levels of PEVs on the regional electric power grid and on the net change in CO2 emissions due to the decrease tailpipe emissions and the increase in electricity generation under current emissions caps. The study scope includes all of New England and New York state, modeled as one system of electricity supply and demand, which includes the estimated 2030 baseline demand and the cur- rent generation capacity plus increased renewable capacity to meet state Renewable Portfolio Standard targets for 2030. The models presented here include fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, public charging infrastructure scenarios, hourly charging demand, solar and wind generation and capacity factors, and real-world travel derived from the 2016-2017 National Household Travel Survey. We make certain assumptions, informed by the literature, with the goal of creating a modeling methodology to improve the estimation of hourly PEV charging demand for input into regional electric sector dispatch models. The methodology included novel stochastic processes, considered seasonal and weekday versus weekend differences in travel, and did not force the PEV battery state-of-charge to be full at any specific time of day. The results support the need for public charging infrastructure, specifically at workplaces, with the “work” infrastructure scenario shifting more of the unmanaged charging demand to daylight hours when solar generation could be utilized. Workplace charging accounted for 40% of all non-home charging demand in the scenario where charging infrastructure was “universally” available. Under the increased renewable fuel portfolio, the reduction in average CO2 emissions ranged from 90 to 92% for the vehicles converted from ICEV to PEV. The total emissions reduced for 15% PEV penetration and universally available charging infrastructure was 5.85 million metric tons, 5.27% of system-wide emissions. The results support the premise of plug-in electric vehicles being an important strategy for the reduction of CO2 emissions in our study region. Future investigation into the extent of reductions possible with both the optimization of charging schedules through pricing or other mechanisms and the modeling of grid level energy storage is warranted. Additional model development should include a sensitivity analysis of the PEV charging demand model parameters, and better data on the charging behavior of PEV owners as they continue to penetrate the market at higher rates.

Invasive species exact important ecologic, economic, and cultural tolls in forests. This research focused on the intersections of invasive ecology, forest management, and a forest commodity. Invasive ecology was explored through an assessment of two potential biological control agents of hemlock woolly adelgid. The two species of silver fly (Leucopis spp.) from the Pacific Northwest were first examined for temporal resource partitioning patterns. The niches of these species were then examined spatially by developing a species distribution model. Leucopis spp. exhibited sinusoidal patterns of daily emergence when examined over a 29-day period, with peak daily abundances that were inversely related. Spatially, however, landscape-scale and climatic indicators were not significant in predicting the presence of Leucopis spp. in the Pacific Northwest. This adds important information about niche dynamics of Leucopis spp. in the Pacific Northwest, which may have logistical and operational implications for their use in the USDA Forest Service’s Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Initiative. Additionally, the potential opportunities and risks of using wood that has been impacted by invasive species and pests was explored through a literature analysis focused on three species posing a threat to northeastern US forests: emerald ash borer, hemlock woolly adelgid, and southern pine beetle. Based on this review, I concluded that although opportunities for the use of this wood are sometimes recognized, the phytosanitary risks in feedstock pre-treatment are not being directly addressed in US-related literature. These studies provide important evidence for adaptive solutions to forest pests that consider both forest health and forest economics.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-155).
Waste management is a complex issue, often out of sight and mind, but with the potential for significant negative environmental, social, and economic impacts. Electricity resource planning is equally complex and can potentially lead to equally negative consequences when done poorly. This is especially so within New England, the geographic boundary of this thesis due to significant physical constraints on land and electricity resources. Historically these two processes have been dealt with nationally as very separate issues. However, there has been recent acknowledgment within both public and private camps regarding the potential overlaps of waste management and energy development, which includes electricity resource planning. This thesis has endeavored to analyze the current state of waste management and energy development policy to further expose the potential benefits of increased coordination. With this accomplished, the thesis further provides policy recommendations designed to co-optimize waste management and energy development to decrease dependence on landfill disposal and increase the installed capacity of non-fossil fuel-based electricity resources in New England. The author believes substantial environmental, economic, and social benefits can be gained through increased waste management and energy development coordination, and that this thesis will move decision-makers and citizens alike to take action.
by Walker Larsen.
M.C.P.

Passive solar design can be an effective means of reducing conditioning loads in residential buildings by utilizing free solar heat during the heating season, and blocking unwanted solar heat during the cooling season. The objective of this thesis was to use energy modeling software to simulate the effect that incorporating passive solar design strategies into typical New England style houses would have on their energy usage for heating and cooling. The designs that were studied were Capes, Colonials, and Saltboxes. Four versions of increasing energy efficiency were studied for each style. After measuring baseline energy usage for each model, four passive solar variables were incorporated: orientation, allocation of windows to southern façade, shading devices, and thermal mass. After determining the ideal orientation of each building, 300 combinations of window allocation, shading device depth, and amount of thermal mass were simulated for each model. From this pool of simulations, the model with the lowest conditioning costs was selected and compared to its respective baseline design. As a general trend for each style, as the level of energy efficiency decreased, the savings from incorporating passive solar design increased. For the colonial models, the savings ranged from $422-$150. For the Saltbox models, the annual savings ranged from$398-$116. For the Cape models, the savings ranged from $303-$75.

Wind energy is a means of energy production without carbon emissions, facilitating regional and national energy security. While there are currently no offshore wind farms in the United States, there has been growing success in building land-based wind capacity. Within the wind industry, there is a call for a streamlined permitting process, as well as an objective evaluation of current stakeholder processes. Within city and regional planning, the stakeholder process and public participation in general have long been subject to research and discourse, as scholars and practitioners alike seek to identify and typify what exactly makes public participation robust or rigorous. In Europe, researchers have found that a stakeholder process characterized by early inclusion and local decision-making increases community acceptance of large-scale wind projects, and that a ‘soft-path’, decentralized approach to infrastructure development, as seen in Germany, leads to greater community acceptance as well, versus the ‘hard-path’, centralized approach to infrastructure development as typified in early Dutch wind development. While the public process should not supplant the formal permitting process, or detract from technical expertise, a better understanding of what type of siting and decision-making process are construed by participants as positive or negative could help to formulate stakeholder involvement more effectively in future projects. It could also help to decrease the length of permitting times by promoting consensus-building rather than inadvertently creating an adversarial decision-making climate. This thesis uses a case study methodology to compare three land-based wind farms in Massachusetts and Vermont. It also compares the wind development policies between the two states. From each site, stakeholders are identified and interviewed concerning their experiences and perspectives of the stakeholder or public process. Interviews are analyzed using a matrix composed of success criteria pulled from the fields of regional planning and public participation theory, collaborative planning, and adaptive resource management. Findings include evidence as to what degree there was a stakeholder process, and to what degree participants found it positive or negative. The research found that the characteristics and practices of ore robust or rigorous stakeholder engagement are largely lacking in New England land-based wind development. These characteristics or practices included third-party data collection and reporting; early and broad stakeholder inclusion; collaborative ground rule setting; and no third-party mediation or facilitation. Stakeholder process perspectives are easily divided by wind-energy attitudes: anti-wind stakeholders reported greater antipathy toward the process, whereas proponents of both specific projects and the technology in general reported greater favorability toward the process and outcome. Vermont and Massachusetts have distinct wind development processes and distinct mechanisms for public participation and stakeholder engagement in a renewable energy technology context. In many ways, the siting of renewable infrastructure still follows the ‘decide, announce, defend’ character of conventional infrastructure and facility siting. Wind proponents, and proponents of other renewable energy technologies and sustainability measures in general, should pause and consider how to craft meaningful, robust and rigorous stakeholder processes prior to site selection and development. This will lend legitimacy to both the process and technology, lending political and social sustainability to a technology that is well needed for social, economic and environmental well-being. Continued avoidance of early and robust stakeholder engagement may contribute to ongoing conflict and confusion regarding renewable energy siting, permitting and development. Stakeholder experiences and perspectives also demonstrated that there are many factors contributing to public and social perceptions of wind technology and specific projects, including the financial gain or reward to communities and stakeholders; the size of individual turbines; project ownership and management; and project scale. There is opportunity for enhancing the public process and allowing rigorous and robust stakeholder process in wind energy development.

AbstractIn this work, a new optimization methodology for heat treatment furnaces based on the variation of the geometric distribution of the heating elements is developed. For this, it is implemented a heat transfer model for simulating the homogenization periods during the treatment, which leads to the appearance of an objective function that allows simultaneously optimizing thermal homogeneity and heat transfer to the piece. In this way, it is possible to avoid the use of multi-objective optimization schemes that require the use of arbitrary criteria for the determination of an absolute optimum. Finally, the proposed methodology is applied to a radiant tube heat treatment furnace, with which it is possible to reduce fuel consumption by around 10%.

AbstractThe cooling phase in the cycle time of the injection molding process is currently the phase with the greatest influence on energy expenditure and sustainability. Traditional designs are not capable of perform an adequate thermal exchange between the coolant and the mold cavity, especially in parts with complex geometries and deep cores. For this reason, the conformal cooling channels provide greater flexibility to the design, achieving efficient heat exchange between the surface and internal layers of the plastic part. The present research describes the application of a new conformal cooling system to optimize the cooling phase of a complex plastic part with great depth where the use of traditional cooling is inefficient. The results of the presented research greatly improve the uniformity of temperatures on the surface of the plastic part, reducing the cycle time by more than 37%. These results are perfectly aligned with the objective of improving the sustainability and efficiency of the manufacturing process.

AbstractRenewable energy sources are sustainable alternatives for the electrical and energy development of countries. This paper analyzes the different mechanisms applicable to the Brazilian scenario. Brazil has several fronts and has direct policy instruments, such as subsidies and tax incentives, and indirect mechanisms. We analyze the need to expand existing mechanisms, implement new strategies, and improve the dissemination of existing programs to increase public awareness and pursue of a more efficient renewable energy transition. The participation of renewable sources, such as solar and wind, are gaining more and more space in the energy market in Brazil and much of this is due to incentives, such as tax and tariff rebates and long-term contracts. In 2021, the expansion of the Brazilian electric matrix was almost 1 GW (957.03 MW), according to the National Agency of Electrical Energy (ANEEL). Of this total power, 80% comes from renewable plants, from wind, hydro and solar sources.

AbstractThe potential for cultural and creative industries (CCIs) to support national economic growth was first identified by the UK mapping report (DCMS, Creative industries mapping document. HMSO, 1998) and recently reiterated in a “sector deal” for creative industries (Bazalgette, Independent review of the creative industries. Department for Media, Culture and Sport, September 22. www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-the-creative-industries, 2017) accompanying the UK’s Industrial Strategy (BEIS, Industrial strategy: Building a Britain fit for the future. Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, November 27. Accessible via www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-strategy-building-a-britain-fit-for-the-future, 2017). This chapter explores the role of these narratives of CCI policymaking within two city-regional Local Industrial Strategy (LIS) pilots in the West Midlands and the North West of England. Using discourse analysis of LIS pilots, it compares their social practices and discourses which reveal “the local”, the rhetoric of creativity and the boundary work (Lamont & Molnár, The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 167–195. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurevsoc.28.110601.141107, 2002) within policy processes. It finds evidence of contractual relationships between the national and the local, and, following Paasi (Regional geography in 2020. In A. Kobayashi (Ed.), International encyclopedia of human geography. Elsevier, 2020), discursive practices and social interactions that mark out borders of these city-regions, revealing the agency of place within centrally driven policy instruments designed to support economic growth at a sub-national level.

AbstractThermoeconomics is a science that reconciles thermodynamic and economic concepts. It can be divided into three fields of action: cost allocation, diagnosis and optimization. Most thermoeconomicists agree that exergy is the most appropriate thermodynamic magnitude to associate with cost. In some applications, exergy disaggregation is required. Literature shows several thermoeconomic methodologies. Despite the wide use and their respective fields of action, all models have limitations in the dissipative equipment isolation and waste treatment or an increase in complexity in thermoeconomic modeling. In order to fill part of this scientific gap in thermoeconomics, a recent methodology, the A&F Model, is proposed. This new approach disaggregates physical exergy into just two terms, namely Helmholtz energy and flow work. This work presents for the first time the use of this new approach, through a cost allocation, in a cogeneration system with regenerative gas turbine, and compares it with conventional thermoeconomic methodologies.

Alternative energy laboratory experiences in solar PV and wind energy have been developed to help support the “green” concentration recently offered for the first time in the mechanical engineering program at Western New England College. These laboratories, which give students hands-on experience and a better understanding of basic concepts in alternative energy systems, are conducted in a newly developed indoor/outdoor alternative energy laboratory facility. The alternative energy indoor/outdoor laboratory facility includes a fully operation geothermal system, which is used to heat and cool the engineering labs. It also includes six 195 Watt photovoltaic panels, a 30,000 Btu/clear day flat-plate solar collector, a Thermomax evacuated tubes solar collector, as well as a full scale 1 kW wind turbine, which allows for useful power and hot water to be provided to the engineering building. This facility is also fully instrumented for the collection of key performance data and allows for large scale demonstration of alternative energy systems to students. This paper describes the development, operation and capability of the indoor/outdoor alternative energy facilities, as well as a detailed description of solar and wind experiments, and how these are used in support of the “green” concentration within the mechanical engineering curriculum to give engineering graduates greater competency in the design, analysis and application of solar and wind energy systems.

A new senior level interdisciplinary lab experience has been developed at Western New England College which focuses on the use of biodiesel in an interdisciplinary engineering design and sustainability team project. A biodiesel generation system has been developed as part of two senior capstone design projects, and the system is capable of converting all of the waste vegetable oil (WVO) generated by the college food services department into biodiesel for use in diesel powered utility equipment on campus, and to heat the mechanical engineering laboratories. This fuel is also used to power vehicles designed as part of the senior level interdisciplinary lab experience which previously involved the development of a solar powered vehicle. Teams comprised of mechanical, electrical and computer engineering students are required to design and fabricate biodiesel powered vehicles designed to transport a payload across a race track in the shortest time possible using the biodiesel generated by each student team from waste cooking oil found on campus. Students gain hands on experience in the conversion of waste cooking oil into fuel and learn that the quality of the fuel generated plays an important role on vehicle performance. Students are given tight budgetary constrains to encourage the use of recycled materials and used parts found in the engineering labs. A mathematical energy model is developed to predict vehicle performance and an onboard data acquisition system is developed to measure performance parameters such as vehicle speed, engine rpm, and wind speed for comparison to the predictive energy model. Students are graded on vehicle performance on race day, the total cost of the vehicle and the vehicle weight. The experience gives students valuable insights into the interdisciplinary team dynamic and the importance of engineering for sustainability.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3