Emerging
economies are facing various energy challenges. One is meeting the needs of
billions of people lacking access to energy services. Second is to be a part of
the global transition to develop safe, clean and low carbon energy systems to
meet the local needs. The other challenges are to understand the gender based,
social, cultural and political norms of the local areas in these countries. All this needs to be implemented at an
accelerated rate to meet the growing demand in these countries. Thus energy at the local level has also to be
need driven, satisfying the local consumer and efficient enough to effectively
meet this long list of challenges.
The goal of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions in these economies may be aligned with the pursuit of other
energy-related objectives, such as developing indigenous renewable resources
and reducing local forms of pollution. In general, the costs of most forms of
renewable energy have declined substantially in recent decades. In the early
1990s, only hydropower was competitive with electricity generated by
conventional power plants for on-grid applications. However, expanding markets
and experience-proven cost reductions have since made wind and geothermal power
competitive or nearly competitive with other, conventional sources. In
dispersed, off-grid applications, intermittency may pose less of a problem and
renewable technologies may be more cost-effective than the next available
conventional option. In addition, the modularity of many renewable energy
technologies facilitates their deployment in relatively small increments.
This can be advantageous in cost and risk to many developing countries.
Involvement
of rural cooperatives for PV electricity by the world renound Grameen Bank of Bangladesh
is a motivating case study for providing clean access to electricity. In 1996
it established a non-profit subsidiary – Grameen Shakti to administer loans for
photovoltaic solar home systems to serve those who had no access to
electricity. It found that long
distances, poor transport infrastructure, periodically flooded and impassable
roads, low literacy rates, lack of technical skills and transactions based on
barter contributed to high transaction costs and difficulty in building
consumer confidence in their product. In 1998, a Global Environment Facility
(GEF) grant enabled to offer improved credit terms to its customers and install
thousands of systems (G8, RETF, 2001)
Governments, NGOs, Inter-governmental
organizations and other funding agencies need to cover the following in their
policy agenda for energy resources at local level in developing countries:
-
Adopting
and promoting at least the minimum energy standards for construction, basic
appliances and vehicles. This will require re-direction of energy subsidies.
-
Researching
and sustainably developing acceptable indigenous renewable energy resources
through effective transfer of technology from developed countries. This would
also need building of human and institutional capacity needed to support the
process.
