Decentralised Energy and Climate Change
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BOILING POINT /ISSUE 54 / 200867 — 2015 £5 A PRACTITIONER’S JOURNAL ON HOUSEHOLD ENERGY, STOVES AND POVERTY REDUCTION Theme Decentralised Energy and Climate Change Catalysing decentralised renewable energy market transformation – p2 A publication of the Powering Myanmar through solar home systems – p7 Modern design principles for investable village power projects – p14 Aggregating micro-grid and nano-grid projects to scale off-grid solar – p18 plus interviews with Akon Lighting Africa and DOEN Foundation, helplines, sponsor news and more... www.hedon.info Boiling Point is a practitioner’s journal for those working with household energy and stoves. It deals with technical, social, financial and environmental Contents issues and aims to improve the quality of life for poor communities living in the developing world. Theme Editorial: Decentralised Energy and Climate Change 1 Welcome… Catalysing decentralised renewable energy market transformation: 2 The Bijli experience to the latest edition of Boiling Point. We strive to make the Jarnail Singh journal as accessible and participative as possible, and welcome Powering Myanmar: Brighterlite’s solar home systems 7 any comments or suggestions by email or post. Please see the Jørund Buen inside of the back cover page for details on how to contribute papers to future issues. Boiling Point is published by the Modern design principles for investable village power projects 14 HEDON Household Energy Network (www.HEDON.info). Stewart Alexander Craine Aggregating micro-grid and nano-grid projects to scale off-grid solar: 18 Editorial board A practitioner’s perspective Sandeep Giri, Anjal Niraula Boiling Point Coordinator: Karima Hirji (HEDON) Guest Editors: Jeroen Gerlag, Subaskar Sitsabeshan (The Climate Group) Viewpoints Grant Ballard-Tremeer, Andrew Barnett, Raffaella Bellanca, Interview with Akon, Co-Founder of Akon Lighting Africa 10 Leslie Cordes, Jack Dedman, Karabi Dutta, Ben Garside, Dick Jones, Kavita Rai and Luc Severi Interview with Jeff Prins, Programme Manager of DOEN Foundation 22 Opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of HEDON. We do not charge a subscription to Boiling Point, but welcome Helpline donations to cover the cost of production and dispatch. Expert response by Mohua Mukherjee and Padu Padmanaban 12 Expert response by Donee Alexander and Seema Patel 24 Boiling Point. HEDON Household Energy Network 1 Bromley Lane Sponsor News Chislehurst, BR7 6LH, UK HEDON News – Latest news from HEDON 25 Telephone/Fax: +44 (0) 20 30 120 150 Karima Hirji Email: [email protected] The Climate Group News – Latest news from The Climate Group 26 Jeroen Gerlag, Subaskar Sitsabeshan Website link GIZ News – Latest news from GIZ 30 Look out for the @HEDON link at the end of each article. Caspar Priesemann, Monika Rammelt This easy to use feature links directly to the online version of the article, together with extra weblinks and resources. Global Household Energy News Latest News 40 General www.HEDON.info/NGUN Energy market systems development: Lessons from the urban 32 food processing sector in Indonesia * Full article online Will Baron, David Nicholson * Author profile and Demand side analysis of warm comfort improvements in high cold 36 latest contact details regions: A case from Huancavelica, Peru * Article websites Mariana Jiménez, Lukas Kahlen Meet us @HEDON Call for papers ISSN 0263-3167 (Print) ISSN 1757-0689 (Online) Boiling Point forthcoming themes 41 Cover photo: A family in the village Brojoballabhpur in Sunderbans, West Bengal – one of the Bijli sites. (Source: Jarnail Singh) Design by Dean Ford Creativity Ltd. +44 (0) 20 7000 1055 www.deanfordcreativity.com We would like to extend our thanks to our sponsors: The Climate Group, GIZ and StovePlus for financial support towards this edition. EDITORIAL Editorial ISSUE 67 Decentralised Energy and Climate Change lobally 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity. This delivery model and the current decentralised energy landscape is almost a fifth of the world’s population. But energy in the African continent. While Akon stresses the importance Gdemand is rapidly increasing, driven by economic of the initiative’s for-profit model, an interview with Jeff growth and a growing population. Consequently an increase of Prins, from the Dutch Postcode Lottery’s DOEN Foundation, greenhouse gas emissions leads to climate change- a continuing illustrates how Foundations can tackle the interlocked challenge for human development. Decentralised renewable challenges of energy access and climate change through the energy offers an ideal platform to leave behind fossil fuel based evolving role of philanthropy. energy production and address some of the challenges posed This issue’s two Helpline sections further delve into by climate change. The link between decentralised energy specific challenges faced by decentralised renewable energy and climate change must be explored in order to understand practitioners. Mohua Mukherjee (World Bank) and Padu these twin sustainable development challenges and the need to Padmanaban (Ex- USAID) address one of the most challenging prioritise these issues at the global scale. issues facing energy providers in rural villages- the question This issue of Boiling Point explores decentralised renewable of unreliable data for grid expansion and what happens when energy initiatives from around the world with theme articles state provided grid electricity reaches the community that focused on projects in South Asia. An article on The Climate practitioners provide electricity access to. The second Helpline Group’s initiative ‘Bijli – Clean Energy for All’, takes a close look section features an expert response from The Global Alliance at the decentralised renewable energy market transformation for Clean Cookstoves who answer a question from Africa experiences in India. The article illustrates how grants can regarding financing incentives for efficient cookstoves that catalyse financial and institutional innovation among existing reduce black carbon and other short lived climate pollutants. stakeholders and identifies lack of access to affordable debt as a Finally, this issue of Boiling Point includes wider household major bottleneck to scaling up renewable off-grid energy access. energy access articles. Mercy Corps share lessons learnt from Other theme articles include an exploration of Brighterlite’s energy market systems development from the Indonesian urban technologically innovative solar home system business model food processing sector and Micro-Energy International present in Myanmar that draws on lessons learnt from Pakistan and a research study on the demand for technologies that improve Kenya, as well as two articles that focus on Nepal’s decentralised the warm comfort performance of poor households in a cold renewable energy landscape. The article ‘Modern design mountain region of Peru. principles for investable village power projects’ from Village As the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are Infrastructure Angels explores Nepal’s current subsidy policy, redefined with important focus on energy access and climate recommending a modern mini-grid design philosophy. Further, change, this issue of Boiling Point seeks practical insights into an article from the Gham Power team focuses on scaling up best practices and learnings from practitioners who bring the mini-grid and micro-grid models in Nepal and the potential for challenges and opportunities to light, with the hope of moving saving carbon emissions. towards a prosperous, low carbon future. Exploring decentralised energy projects in Africa, an interview with international music star Akon, on the ‘Akon Subaskar Sitsabeshan and Jeroen Gerlag (The Climate Group) Lighting Africa’ initiative, describes the organisation’s solar Karima Hirji (HEDON Household Energy Network) Boiling Point. ISSUE 67 — 2015 1 THEME Theme PEER REVIEWED Catalysing decentralised renewable energy market transformation: The Bijli experience Keywords: Bijli; Delivery models; Off-grid energy; Decentralised renewable energy; Financing mechanisms; India Author Jarnail Singh The Climate Group Suite#1203, 12th Floor Chiranjiv Tower, Nehru Place New Delhi, 110 009, India [email protected] Picture 1: Bijli-Clean Energy for All initiative (Source: The Climate Group) Access to clean energy has clearly emerged as a focus of the global development community in the recent past. At the same time, the market for decentralised renewable energy (DRE) has grown at an unprecedented pace and thus holds momentous promise for universal energy access. Access to finance is widely accepted as a major challenge given that the private sector views decentralised energy as much riskier than other alternative, straightforward investment options. This article presents the experiences from Bijli-Clean Energy for All initiative that has demonstrated the use of grants to catalyse financial and institutional innovation among existing stakeholders within the Indian DRE sector. The programme has supported different delivery models to implement innovative financing mechanisms including end-user financing, trade-financing, working capital as well as debt collateralisation. The article identifies access to affordable debt as the key bottleneck in scaling up energy access through DRE. The author highly recommends creation of a futuristic and innovative debt financing facility that would emerge as the go-to agency for India’s DRE financing needs in the future. Introduction issues