Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Youba Sokona, Yacob Mulugetta, Haruna Gujba

The discussion to widen access to modern energy services has been influential in shaping some of the discussions on energy at the international level. The practice of widening modern energy services access to the poor in Africa is complex, and exacerbated by the dual nature of the energy system across Sub-Saharan Africa where traditional and modern energy systems and practices co-exist. This presents major challenges for policy makers who have to contend with a fragmented energy system, which requires the mobilisation of an array of actors at cross-sectoral levels in order to develop effective institutions and implement innovative policy frameworks. This paper further argues that, the ‘energy access’ discussion needs to take place in the context of energy transitions, giving due consideration to the productive sector as an important vehicle for change. As the link between energy and development is context specific, each African country needs to chart its own energy transition pathway into the future, and there are ample lessons that they can draw from previous energy transitions.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Leena Srivastava, Anandajit Goswami, Gaurang Meher Diljun, Saswata Chaudhury

After decades of research on the subject of energy poverty and access and its impact on human development, the issue has finally gained global attention and commitment through the UN Secretary General's initiative on Sustainable Energy for All. However, the issue of what constitutes energy access and how such access can be supported by efficient subsidies remains a key question that does not have simple answers. At what point along the energy consumption and income spectrum does the energy access problem cease to be one of public policy, thereby letting the market take over? Using data from an extensive survey carried out by the Government of India, this paper highlights the complexities and inadequacies of using a normative consumption based approach to determine the scope and scale of interventions required. Factoring in the environmental and social pillars of sustainable development when defining access to modern energy forms would also significantly inform the level of effort involved in meeting the goal of energy access to all.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Smail Khennas

This paper is focused on the key drivers of energy access in North and sub-Saharan Africa which are characterized by huge discrepancies in terms of energy access to modern forms of energy. The paper points out that long term development strategies and large programmes with significant financial resources are essential to achieving substantial results in terms of energy access. The paper argues that building up the energy infrastructure (power plants, grid interconnections and small-scale decentralized energy options in rural areas.) is a pre-condition for economic growth and ultimately for energy access. It underlines that historically there is a trend towards more efficient, convenient and cost effective forms of energy. Low carbon path and above all renewable will therefore play an increasing role in the energy mix in the next couple of decades. Manufacturing of capital goods for the renewable energy industry in Africa will be a key challenge to achieving energy security economic growth and energy access.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

I.H. Rehman, Abhishek Kar, Manjushree Banerjee, Preeth Kumar, Martand Shardul, Jeevan Mohanty, Ijaz Hossain

Globally, 1.5 billion people lack access to electricity and nearly 3 billion lack access to modern cooking energy options. Of the world’s “energy poor”, 95% are in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Within Asia, almost 80% of electricity-deprived and 86% of biomass-dependent populations are in the “Big 5” countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. In this paper, we discuss the broad contours of the political economy of energy access in these countries. The political economy is assessed through an examination of three sustainability objectives: accessibility of physical infrastructure; energy service delivery; and conformance to social goals. The key areas of concern include emphasis on supply-driven grid electricity; vested power dynamics favouring affluent and urban areas; unreliability of energy service provision; and misdirected and misappropriated subsidies. The above-mentioned issues are responsible for limiting accelerated achievement of universal energy access in the “Big 5” countries and need to be addressed through innovative approaches. The paper emphasizes the need for firm commitments, policy convergence, and the implementation of 'pro-poor' equitable energy policies through a broad-based energy framework of bench-marked, technology-neutral energy provisioning that ensures reliability and equity. It highlights the need for reorienting of the subsidy regime and incorporating energy service delivery indicators in monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Lawrence Agbemabiese, Jabavu Nkomo, Youba Sokona

Conventional energy technologies and deployment approaches cannot be relied upon to eliminate energy poverty in Africa. Innovations in energy access are necessary. Previous attempts at introducing and scaling up innovative solutions do not sufficiently address dynamic and structural determinants of success. This limits their actual performance as scalable drivers of innovations in technology, policy and institutions. Using technological innovation systems theory, we demonstrate a practical approach to assess the sustainability of innovations in energy access, and develop a framework to guide energy policy makers, clean energy entrepreneurs and energy-development researchers.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Akanksha Chaurey, P.R. Krithika, Debajit Palit, Smita Rakesh, Benjamin K. Sovacool

Twenty years since the Rio Summit, the global community is still struggling to develop a world with universal access to sustainable energy services. The discussion on energy and its linkages with sustainable development is at the heart of the debate in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This paper discusses the role of innovations in terms of partnerships and business models to enhance energy access, especially for those living at the so-called bottom of pyramid. The role of innovative energy options and policy choices that enable overall operationalization of energy access in developing countries as well as new forms of partnerships and innovative mechanisms that are based on established success, replicability and potential for scaling up has been examined through two case-studies, namely the Lighting a Billion Lives project and India's National Rural Electrification Programme. This paper suggests the need for new forms of public and private sector partnerships, especially the pro-poor ones that are effective in enhancing energy access.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Yohannes G. Hailu

A significant number of African States have adapted energy access targets. In evaluating progress towards these goals, measuring and monitoring energy access becomes relevant. This paper reviews energy access indicators and identifies their utility and challenges in their application. By focusing on Africa, a broader framework for energy access measurement and monitoring is discussed, along with implementation barriers and potential solutions. To demonstrate the utility of energy access decision-support tool in Africa, a scenario analysis in five regional energy pools is conducted using the Energy Spending Model tool. Institutionalizing monitoring and decision-support tools can provide valuable feedback to policymakers aiming to design and implement effective energy access programs serving a growing population in Africa.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Jaya Bhanot, Vivek Jha

Access to energy services has been recognised as central to achieving economic growth and sustainable development. However, almost 1.3 billion people in the world still lack access to electricity and 2.7 billion lack access to clean cooking facilities. In this backdrop, the issue of energy access is receiving more interest than ever before and this has brought to the fore, the need for a robust decision support tool for policy makers to measure the progress of energy access provision and also to provide direction for future policy making. The paper studies existing definitions of energy access and identifies the key requirements for an appropriate decision-making tool to measure and monitor energy access provision. In this context the paper assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the metrics currently being used to measure energy access in policy, as well as of contemporary monitoring and evaluation frameworks being used in other sectors. Based on these insights, a dashboard of indicators is proposed as an alternate decision support tool for policy makers to measure energy access. The paper concludes with a discussion on what is needed to operationalise this proposed framework.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Haruna Gujba, Steve Thorne, Yacob Mulugetta, Kavita Rai, Youba Sokona

Modern energy access in Africa is critical to meeting a wide range of developmental challenges including poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite having a huge amount and variety of energy resources, modern energy access in the continent is abysmal, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Only about 31% of the Sub-Saharan African population have access to electricity while traditional biomass energy accounts for over 80% of energy consumption in many Sub-Saharan African countries. With energy use per capita among the lowest in the world, there is no doubt that Africa will need to increase its energy consumption to drive economic growth and human development. Africa also faces a severe threat from global climate change with vulnerabilities in several key areas or sectors in the continent including agriculture, water supply, energy, etc. Low carbon development provides opportunities for African countries to improve and expand access to modern energy services while also building low-emission and climate-resilient economies. However, access to finance from different sources will be critical in achieving these objectives. This paper sets out to explore the financial instruments available for low carbon energy access in Africa including the opportunities, markets and risks in low carbon energy investments in the continent.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Arnab Bose, Aditya Ramji, Jarnail Singh, Dhairya Dholakia

Energy access is critical for sustainable development and therefore financing energy access is a necessity. The key is whether to focus on grants or public finance for sustainable development projects or move to a more diffused financing mechanism, involving investment grade financing sources like debt and equity. In other words, financing sustainable development action via grants is becoming a constraint. To address this constraint, it is important to consider the relationship between the nature and sources of financial flows. The concept of ‘financial gradients’ emerged while analysing the financial and business strategy developed for Lighting a Billion Lives (LaBL) campaign. This paper espouses the idea of ‘financial gradients’ which is a potential financial mechanism for sustainable development action. Financial gradients, can contribute in three different ways—first, as an approach to analyse financial flows in projects; second, as a tool to generate a single, long term and stable inflow of finance; third, as a financial mechanism to help in creating long term strategies to sustain projects. This paper will concentrate on financial gradients as a potential approach to analyse financial flows in a sustainable development programme.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 47, Supplement 1

Yannick Glemarec

This paper examines the role of public instruments in promoting private finance to achieve off-grid sustainable energy access. Renewable energy technologies are increasingly becoming the cheapest solutions for off-grid energy access. The dramatic uptake of mobile phones in developing countries shows how quickly decentralized services can develop on a commercial basis under the right conditions, and raises the prospect that private finance could also drive decentralized energy access for the poor. Indeed, there are already a number of instances of clean energy solutions – such as solar portable lights, household biogas units or solar home systems – that have managed to scale-up through leveraging private finance. However, the experience gained from first-generation market development projects show that, in almost all cases, significant public resources have been necessary to increase the affordability of clean energy technologies, provide access to financing for the poor, and remove non-economic barriers. Such public interventions may be funded by international public finance, domestic budgets and carbon finance. Despite mounting fiscal constraints facing governments worldwide, the emergence of new sources of climate finance and the political momentum in support of energy subsidy reforms, as well as new programming modalities, offer opportunities to leverage additional resources to achieve universal energy access by 2030.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 45

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 45

Morgan Bazilian, Ijeoma Onyeji

We briefly consider the impact of fossil fuel subsidy removal policies in the context of inadequate power supply, with a focus on the implications for businesses. In doing so, we utilize the case of the early 2012 fuel subsidy removal in Nigeria. The rationale for such subsidy-removal policies is typically informed by analysis showing that they lead to an economically inefficient allocation of resources and market distortions, while often failing to meet intended objectives. However, often the realities of infrastructural and institutional deficiencies are not appropriately factored into the decision-making process. Businesses in many developing countries, already impaired by the high cost of power supply deficiencies, become even less competitive on an unsubsidized basis. We find that justifications for removal often do not adequately reflect the specific environments of developing country economies, resulting in poor recommendations – or ineffective policy.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 45

Joern Huenteler, Tobias S. Schmidt, Norichika Kanie

The Japanese electricity sector is facing serious challenges in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The government has responded to the crisis with a new feed-in-tariff to promote increased utilization of renewable energy, and proposed to reduce the dependence on nuclear power. In this viewpoint, we liken the transition implied by recently updated goals for the diffusion of renewables in Japan to the transition in Germany in the last decade. We argue that some of the lessons learned in Germany might prove valuable for the steps Japan considers taking. In particular, we focus on the new Japanese feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaics. In view of the recent developments in Germany, we emphasize the importance of the scheme's political legitimacy, which needs to be maintained through adequate design of both policy instrument and political process. We conclude with policy implications and a targeted research agenda.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 45

Steve Thomas

Intuitively, the Fukushima disaster should have a major impact on the future of the nuclear industry. This paper argues that there are four possible answers to the question what will Fukushima change: everything because the nuclear industry cannot survive another Chernobyl; the impact will vary according to location; it is too early to determine the impact; and the nuclear industry was facing serious problems that Fukushima will do no more than exacerbate. We focus on the last answer, arguing that the new designs that were expected to be so attractive as to power a ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ were already failing. The promises that they would be safer, but simpler, therefore cheaper and more buildable were unachievable and the Renaissance in the West had already failed. If the nuclear industry is to have a future, it might be through a shift in locus from North America and Western Europe to China, Russia and India. However, it is not clear that these countries can avoid the techno-economic issues that have derailed the nuclear industry in the West. The prospect that the nuclear industry can be saved by a radical new generation of designs is a long way off and still a remote possibility.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 45

Helmut Haberl, Detlef Sprinz, Marc Bonazountas, Pierluigi Cocco, Yves Desaubies, Mogens Henze, Ole Hertel, Richard K. Johnson, Ulrike Kastrup, Pierre Laconte, Eckart Lange, Peter Novak, Jouni Paavola, Anette Reenberg, Sybille van den Hove, Theo Vermeire, Peter Wadhams, Timothy Searchinger

Many international policies encourage a switch from fossil fuels to bioenergy based on the premise that its use would not result in carbon accumulation in the atmosphere. Frequently cited bioenergy goals would at least double the present global human use of plant material, the production of which already requires the dedication of roughly 75% of vegetated lands and more than 70% of water withdrawals. However, burning biomass for energy provision increases the amount of carbon in the air just like burning coal, oil or gas if harvesting the biomass decreases the amount of carbon stored in plants and soils, or reduces carbon sequestration. Neglecting this fact results in an accounting error that could be corrected by considering that only the use of ‘additional biomass’ – biomass from additional plant growth or biomass that would decompose rapidly if not used for bioenergy – can reduce carbon emissions. Failure to correct this accounting flaw will likely have substantial adverse consequences. The article presents recommendations for correcting greenhouse gas accounts related to bioenergy.

Publication year: 2012
Source:Energy Policy, Volume 45

Mehdi Sadeghi, Ahmad Ameli

This paper presents an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) decision model for sectoral allocation of energy subsidy based on several criteria. With determination of priorities for these criteria through questionnaire and AHP method, the overall rank of these criteria that have the most influence on distribution of energy subsidy among socio-economic sub-sectors, are as the following: inflation, economic growth, labor intensity, distribution of energy subsidy among socio-economic levels, energy intensity and social cost of air pollution. According to the model, the first priority for allocation of energy subsidy is commercial sector and the last priority is related to transportation sector. Investigating the impact of changing priority of the criteria on overall results indicates that the socio-economic sub sectors’ ranking in receiving subsidy have little sensitivity for changing priority of the subsidy criteria.