“Delivering efficient, clean energy to those who lack electricity is not as daunting as it sounds.” — Prof. Daniel M. Kammen, The World Bank
Whether it was the topic at hand, or the possibility of catching a bite to eat, it was standing-room-only at a lunch-time panel last Monday at the UNDP offices in New York.
On the agenda was how UN agencies and other development institutions plan to facilitate access to energy by 2030 for the 3 billion people worldwide who still lack electricity and clean cooking solutions. To kickstart this ambitious effort, the UN has declared 2012 the year of Sustainable Energy Access for All.
Sitting on the panel was Daniel M. Kammen, the World Bank’s Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Kammen, an academic who spent time at Princeton before joining Berkeley, has one of the toughest jobs in the international development community: reconciling the developing world’s need for energy with the pressing reality that the world must move away from fossil-fueled-driven/carbon-intensive economic growth if it wants to avoid the worst impacts from climate change.
During the hour-long discussion, Kammen deftly debunked stereotypes, dispelled myths, and addressed the complexities of the financing, policy, and the scaling-up of renewable energy production and delivery for the world’s energy poor.
Following are excerpts from his remarks.
Myth #1: ‘”Low cost” fossil fuels always trump “high cost” efficiency and renewable when it comes to providing new energy to the poor.’
Kammen calls this “a false dichotomy.” He says there is ample data that shows it is possible to rapidly, affordably, and sustainably provide energy services to the poor through the use of efficient technology and renewable fuels. To support his claim, Kammen points to a tool called the “marginal abatement cost” (MAC curves[1]) and to a set of studies based on real, field-based data.
Kammen is the co-author of one such study which shows how a remote, off-grid community on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast was able to cost-effectively replace its diesel-based electricity generation capacity with a combination of renewable fuels and efficient technologies.
In its conclusion, the study, published in the November edition of Science, states that “(by using MAC curves,) it is apparent that increasing access to energy services can reduce carbon emissions and monetary expenditures, with great potential to affect development and reduce poverty.”
“These are not projections,” Kammen says holding up the research paper in his hand. “This is unvarnished data based on the community having already implemented these technology and policy options.”
Kammen notes that the study occurred at a village-level and that there is a need for more projects to take place at these sub-national levels, villages, communities, regions, and cities to complement the already ongoing work at national, and global levels. “We want a whole network of these studies launched before Durban (the next COP meeting scheduled for December of this year) so that we can show different curves with an increasing large menu of opportunities,” he tells the audience. “In the end, however, it is important to remember that MAC curves provide a range of options and are not intended to be a roadmap,” he says.
[For those interested in replicating studies that track efficiency and renewables against costs, Kammen points to “a fair amount of money available through SREP.” SREP is the Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Program for Low Income Countries, a program under the Strategic Climate Fund (a multi-donor Trust Fund within the Climate Investment Funds). Its overall objective is to support investments in a small number of low-income countries for energy efficiency, renewable energy and access to modern sustainable energy.]
So is the World Bank moving away from funding fossil-fuel electricity generation to an all-renewable and efficiency option? Not immediately, he says.
Kammen notes that fossil fuel-based electricity generation still has an important role to play in providing domestic and productive energy. “It will initially be a hybrid of renewables + efficiency and fossil-fuels at first as the world moves towards low-carbon fuels.” But the real message here is that the transition to efficiency and renewables is not as daunting as it once seemed.
Myth #2: “The idea that efficiency is only for people who already have access to energy is false.”
Studies show that the poor, on average, spend much more on energy as a percentage of income – sometimes four or five times more as a percentage of income – than middle income and rich societies. What this means, Kammen says, is that energy efficiency investments are very important even at the earliest stages of electrification.
“If you build more efficiency in from the beginning of the process of electrification, you can dramatically increase the effective supply available, and you can decrease the cost to the most affected individuals.” This means that “finding ways to do efficiency, not as an after-thought, but as a “pre-thought” is a critical part of story that very few groups seem to take seriously.” In other words, think “leap-frog” effect. A case in point is the rapid penetration of mobile phone technology in Africa that has allowed it to skip traditional investments in fixed line telecoms.
Kammen points to examples that support this theory. “Photovoltaics is one technology that we tend to think of as expensive, but it’s been shown that in some places — like for rural communities in Kenya Uganda, Tanzania — it doesn’t have to be the case.” The price of electricity in many rural areas whe provided by diesel generators can be over $0.50/kWh, sometimes up to $US1.00/kWh. Solar photovoltaics can be a fraction of that. He cites Bangladesh as another example where small-scale, off-grid solar as a primary means of access to electricity (not a massive amount but a primary opportunity) is proving viable.
The World Bank is expected to release later this spring it’s much anticipated new energy strategy, a review the institution undertakes every ten years. The strategy will provide greater details about the Bank’s future plans for investments to support expanded energy access and energy services in developing countries.
Following Kammen’s remarks, the host, Ms. Veerle Vandeweerd, UNDP’s Director of Environment & Energy Group, said “I think the World Bank did the right thing to engage you because I think that to hear someone from the World Bank singing this tune is music to our ears. At UNDP we’ve been arguing this a lot. But it’s only in the last two or three years that this notion has become mainstream,” she said, referring to the lack of conflict between renewables and efficiency and access to energy for the poor.
— The Charcoal Project
EDITORIAL NOTE: Our next story will be a conversation with Ms. Richenda Van Leeuwen, the UN Foundation’s Sr. Director of Energy and Climate, on how the UN and its partner organizations plan to deliver universal energy access for all by 2030.
[1] As described in Wikipedia: “a MAC, or Marginal Abatement Curve, curve is a set of options available to an economy to reduce pollution.”
English 
French 