Edilso Reguera, a researcher at the Center for Research in Applied Science and Advanced Technology (Cicata) of Mexico’s public National Polytechnic Institute, displays an X-ray diffractometer used to study the structure of materials for electric batteries designed to store and recharge energy. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO, May 27 2025 (IPS)

Researcher Edilso Reguera and his team began studying electric battery manufacturing in 2016, but in 2023, they ramped up efforts to develop a lithium-based prototype for motorcycles.

Commissioned by the Mexico City government in 2022, “we developed the battery from scratch. We are the most advanced research group in the country. We tested it on motorcycles, and it works well,” Reguera explained to IPS in his small office. He is an academic at the Center for Research in Applied Science and Advanced Technology Cicata, part of the National Polytechnic Institute, located in the northern part of the capital.

The research began with funding from the city government, and Cicata took charge of designing, producing, and testing the capacitor batteries."We developed the battery from scratch. We are the most advanced research group in the country. We tested it on motorcycles, and it works well." — Edilso Reguera

In the laboratory, where around 40 students and researchers collaborate, staff analyze materials and examine substances using equipment with near-unpronounceable names, collectively worth thousands of dollars.

The Mexican government plans to promote energy storage in renewable plants and electromobility, making projects like Cicata’s crucial.

“A battery is a storage device, so it works well for multiple applications,” said Reguera, who also heads the National Laboratory for Energy Conversion and Storage under the newly created Ministry of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation.

But this vision remains aspirational in Mexico, where only two photovoltaic projects currently include storage systems. While the government has ambitious plans to boost the sector, details remain unclear.

Despite the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) having storage goals since 2004, only two private projects currently have such systems.

One is the Aura Solar III photovoltaic plant, owned by Mexican company Gauss Energía, which has been operating since 2018 in La Paz, the capital of the northwestern state of Baja California Sur. It has a generation capacity of 32 megawatts (MW) and a storage capacity of 10.5 MW.

The other is the La Toba solar park, owned by U.S.-based Invenergy, operational since 2022, also in Baja California Sur, with 35 MW of generation and 20 MW of storage.

This approach allows for savings in energy consumption and costs, as well as backup for the power grid, which is currently under strain due to insufficient generation and maintenance.

Additionally, since wind doesn’t blow constantly and sunlight is only available during the day, renewable energy requires storage capacity to compensate for variability and ensure a stable supply.

Andrés Flores, energy policy director at the non-governmental Iniciativa Climática de México, highlighted the urgency of the issue.

“We are in a high-risk situation, heavily dependent on gas for generation. Due to climate factors, we are already experiencing blackouts,” the expert told IPS.

He explained that Mexico has limited generation capacity and low power reserves, meaning “there is a need to invest in storage to minimize these risks, improve operational flexibility, and integrate more renewables in the near future.”

Flores authored the study Energy Storage in Mexico: Analysis and Policy Proposals, published in January, which identified key challenges, including a 2-gigawatt deficit in operational reserves, limited capacity during peak consumption hours, and concentrated issues during evening and nighttime demand.

The study also found little clarity in energy planning regarding the deployment of storage systems.

The private photovoltaic plant Aura Solar III is one of only two facilities in Mexico equipped with a battery bank for energy storage. Credit: Gauss Energía

Ambitions

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, in office since October, presented the 2024-2030 National Electric Sector Strategy a month later, followed in February by the Plan for Strengthening and Expanding the National Electric System, which are interlinked.

The February plan aims to boost the electricity sector through measures such as adding 574 MW across five photovoltaic plants with capacitor batteries, representing a public investment of US$ 223 million. These plants are expected to come online by 2027.

In the same vein, the Federal Electricity Commission is advancing the bidding for phase II of the Puerto Peñasco photovoltaic plant, located in the namesake town in the northern state of Sonora. This phase will add 300 MW of capacity, backed by 10.3 MW in battery storage. The plant’s first phase (120 MW) has been operational since 2023. Once completed in 2026, the full project will deliver 1,000 MW at a cost of US$1.6 billion.

For Karina Cuentas, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s (UNAM) Center for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, the lag in energy storage stems from a lack of government support.

“We’re behind because not enough funding is allocated to technological development. We have all the tools to make progress, but it’s very difficult due to a lack of resources. There’s enthusiasm because the plan has been presented, along with the roadmap and scenarios to achieve it,” she told IPS from Ensenada, in the northwestern state of Baja California.

“The optimal storage solution for renewables is batteries,” she emphasized.

As president of the non-governmental Mexican Energy Storage Network—a group of around 200 specialists in the field—Cuentas believes progress will depend on “the rules of the game.”

A regulatory framework for energy storage has been in effect since March, but its implementing regulations may take up to two years to finalize, potentially delaying project development.

Additionally, critics argue that the regulation classifies storage backup as part of power generation itself and imposes restrictive guidelines on its applications.

Mexico has an installed capacity of 89,000 MW, and during the first quarter of this year, nearly 61% of electricity generation depended on fossil gas, followed by conventional thermoelectric (6%), wind (nearly 6%), hydroelectric (4.6%), solar photovoltaic (4.2%), coal-fired (3.3%), nuclear (3.2%), gas turbine (3.1%), and geothermal (1.2%).

Renewable energy sources have an installed capacity of over 33,000 MW but contribute only 21% of the electricity. To the current mix, the government’s plan would add 21,893 MW to the national energy grid, aiming to increase clean energy from the current 22.5% to 37.8%.

The electricity sector has suffered from the fossil fuel dependency of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration (2018-2024), who stalled the energy transition—a situation his ally and successor, Sheinbaum, seeks to correct.

The fishing community of San Juanico, in the municipality of Comondú, Baja California Sur, has a hybrid power plant since 1999 combining wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and a diesel generator for electricity supply. Credit: CFE.

Forgotten Potential 

For over a decade, various studies have highlighted the potential of energy storage systems in this Latin American country, home to 129 million people and the region’s second-largest economy after Brazil.

The Federal Electricity Commission identified at least 169 sites in 2017 with potential for pumped-storage hydropower, but it never invested in this method, which is now difficult to implement due to current drought conditions and insufficient reservoir levels.

Civil society organizations estimate that storage capacity could reach 500 MW for industrial projects and 18 MW for residential photovoltaic systems by 2030.

The government’s National Electric System Development Program for 2024-2038 outlines the deployment of seven gigawatts (GW) of storage systems between in 2024-2028 and eight GW in 2028-2038, but without specifying concrete projects or operational mechanisms.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), which represents major energy consumers, recommends incorporating storage into long-term energy planning and incentivizing its deployment. To this end, it suggests continuing regulatory reviews, implementing policies to promote battery recycling, and adopting measures for the trade of used energy storage systems.

The uncertainty surrounding energy storage progress in Mexico is evident in places like Cicata, where experts have called for stronger support.

“Having domestic technological development brings strength, improves the economy, and creates Mexican industrial companies without relying on foreign technology. Technological development is a matter of national security,” said researcher Reguera.

This year, his priorities include developing a sodium-based battery—safer and cheaper than lithium but with lower energy storage capacity—and securing around three million dollars to build a pilot plant capable of assembling about 500 catalysts daily.

Meanwhile, Cuentas, an energy storage expert, expressed hope that “mechanisms will be put in place to foster technological development in the country. With a more modern grid, variability wouldn’t cause as much disruption—it should withstand renewable energy fluctuations. It’s crucial to have more renewable generation and a strengthened grid.”

Finally, Flores, an energy policy specialist, proposed drafting a dedicated storage program and roadmap.

“There needs to be clarity in their plans. There are complementary options, integrating storage with large-scale traditional and renewable generators. For solar and wind energy, having storage facilities would be ideal,” he suggested.

Félix Morfis, next to photovoltaic panels installed on his house in Regla municipality, Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños /IPS

By Dariel Pradas
HAVANA, Dec 12 2024 (IPS)

With Decree 110, published on 26 November, Cuba made it mandatory for major consumers, whether they are state or private entities, to invest in the use of renewable energy sources, while the energy crisis facing the country worsens.

According to the decree, state and private economic actors, representations of foreign institutions and associations must guarantee in new investments regarded as “major consumers of energy carriers” that half of the electricity they consume during daylight hours comes from renewable energy sources.

If they cannot install solar panels, due to the infrastructure of their premises, these entities must enter into contracts with the state-owned Unión Eléctrica – the guarantor of the generation, transmission and commercialisation of electricity – and connect to photovoltaic parks.

Breaking these provisions can lead to fines, interruption of electricity service for up to 72 hours and other sanctions.

“The measure reflects a failure in the policy of incentives for investment in renewable energy sources. It may favour the general population, but it doesn’t change the fact that the change in the energy matrix is being imposed with an iron fist,” Daniel López, a self-employed Havana resident, told IPS.

Entities considered major consumers – those that, in the last 12 months, have an average consumption of 30,000 kilowatts (KW) or 50,000 litres of fuel – will have three years to make investments to cover the 50% daytime use requirement.

Reactions on social media immediately followed the news: many internet users celebrated the decree, some were sceptical about its implementation, and a significant number feared for the impact it could have on the private sector.

“Is it viable providing a better service or increasing my production to have to pay more (by investing in solar panels), and not just in taxes? How many businesses are we going to lose because of this decree? Investment in Cuba is increasingly difficult,” commented user Horus in an article on the subject, published in Cubadebate, the most widely read state-run news website in the country.

Indeed, the law could discourage entrepreneurship in mini-industries or productive areas that normally consume a lot of electricity, or even cause businesses to raise the prices of some products and services to recoup investment costs.

Since 2020, this Caribbean island nation with 10 million people has been facing great difficulties in meeting its domestic electricity demand with its production plants.

The instability of the electro-energy system has been so evident that, in less than two months, Cuba has suffered three general power cuts – the latest on Wednesday 4 December – that have left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity for days.

Workers inside a private lathe workshop in Havana’s Patio El Triunfo, whose electricity supply comes from renewable sources. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

In the absence of incentives

The Patio El Triunfo project, located in the capital’s Regla municipality, is an example of a private business that is self-sufficient in renewable energy sources. It has installed photovoltaic panels with a generation of 10 kilowatts (KW), as well as solar heaters and dryers, and a 0.5 KW wind turbine.

This “clean” energy covers the daytime demand of the house and four businesses that are leased on the premises, including an auto mechanic’s workshop and a lathe shop.

Although the workshops have been in existence since 2010, in 2018 the project began the autonomous production of electricity, the surplus of which it sells to Unión Eléctrica.

The leader of the project, Félix Morfis, who is also the Regla representative of Cubasolar, a non-governmental organisation that has been promoting the use of renewable energy sources in Cuba since 1994 to replace polluting ones, criticises the prices of solar panels and the bureaucratic obstacles to accessing credit and buying them.

“It seems that the Cuban government has no interest whatsoever in people putting up solar panels. They advertise it, they hype it a lot, but actually there is nothing in hand,” he told IPS.

In the retail markets of the state-owned company Copextel, a basic one-kW generation module costs 2,551 MLC, the freely convertible currency, which is virtual and whose reference value is the dollar.

The average wage in Cuba is 4,648 pesos, about US$38.7, according to the official exchange rate of 120 pesos to one dollar.

In 2021, the Ministry of Finance and Prices issued Resolution 359,, which set the price for energy – from renewable sources – delivered to the National Electricity System (SEN) by independent producers in the residential sector: 3 pesos per kilowatt hour (kWh), about 0.025 dollars at the official exchange rate.

In October 2023, the same ministry approved Resolution 238, which doubled that amount.

“They are paying us 6 pesos (US$ 0.05) per kWh, but what I spend, they charge me through the normal system. They sell it to me at a high price and pay me cheaply. There is no incentive,” Morfis added.

The “normal system” that Morfis mentions is a progressive tariff that applies to the residential sector, which after exceeding 450 KWh of accumulated consumption, starts to cost more than six pesos per KWh, until it reaches 20 pesos per KWh (about US$ 0.17).

In any case, it is a subsidised price, according to the authorities, so that the cost of paying for electricity through the national electricity system is only marginally lower than importing or buying solar panels in foreign currency. In the end, it is more profitable not to invest in renewable energy sources.

Even so, more and more people are investing in solar panels with batteries, and private businesses that commercialise these devices have multiplied due to recurrent power outages and fuel shortages.

With no new cards in hand, the government imposed investment in renewable energy sources through Decree 110.

“The most difficult thing is how to make it easier for all the companies to pay for these panels,” Néstor Pérez, a member of the Patio El Triunfo project, told IPS.

Basic module for the production of electricity from solar sources, inside a market in Havana, specialised in the sale of equipment for the use of renewable energy sources, belonging to the state-owned company Copextel. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Overview of renewable energy sources

In addition to decentralised energy generation and reducing the burden on the state, the new decree aims to reduce on imported-fuel dependency.

Since 2019, when the government issued Decree-Law 345 on the “development of renewable sources and the efficient use of energy”, this policy has been a priority.

Cuba aims for renewable energy sources to account for 24% of its energy matrix by 2030.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced on 27 November that more than 2,000 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic energy, equivalent to two million KW, is planned for the next three years.

However, of the 19,825 gigawatt hours (GWh) produced in 2023, 46% came from thermoelectric plants and 12.6% from using thermal energy from oil-fired natural gas, according to data from the  National Statistics and Information Office (Onei).

Likewise, 13.8% was produced by gensets, electricity generators interconnected to the system that run on diesel and fuel oil, and 22.7% from the six floating plants contracted to the Turkish company Karpowership.

Only 0.5% came from hydroelectric plants and 1.2% from wind and photovoltaic power.

Chinese companies have been gaining increasing access to the electricity grids of South American countries. Credit: Bigstock.

By Cecilia Joy-Pérez
WASHINGTON, May 19 2021 (IPS)

Over the past decade, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from China have carved out a niche as owners and operators of electric utilities in South American countries through acquisitions of energy grids. As SOEs shift from their previous role as mostly builders to investors in large energy assets, policymakers in South America and in Washington should consider the implications of having these companies at the helm of such services.

Countries should assess the risk of Beijing directing its SOEs to use their positions as leverage in the event of a diplomatic conflict. Under these circumstances, SOEs could increase the cost of energy, and go as far as to disrupt services.

Although such measures might constitute an extreme response, China has been willing to exert commercial power in disputes with other countries, as a recent episode with Australia has shown.

Furthermore, energy grids are increasingly interwoven with the digital infrastructure of cities – providing an opening for China to introduce backdoors into critical infrastructure. As a result, South American leaders may be less willing to reject Beijing’s claims in international bodies on myriad issues, ranging from the origins of covid-19 to human rights, if basic services hang in the balance.

From Washington’s standpoint, China’s growing role as a service provider could improve perceptions of its economic engagement in the region, paving the way for stronger relationships with South American countries and edging out the US

From Washington’s standpoint, China’s growing role as a service provider could improve perceptions of its economic engagement in the region, paving the way for stronger relationships with South American countries and edging out the US.

This could generate more support for Beijing’s broader policy objectives. US policymakers should engage South American countries to safeguard their energy grids by communicating these potential risks and taking on more leadership in infrastructure development in the region.

China’s firms enter South America through non-competitive means

Despite occasional hype, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has largely refused to cut excess capacity in SOEs. One alternative has been to encourage them to pursue international contracting – first through the ‘Going Out’ policy and later with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Supported by cheap state financing, SOEs can participate in projects that for-profit firms cannot compete with. Beijing also supports SOEs efforts to capture market share, often irrespective of commercial gains, in sectors that it deems strategically important.

Firms such as State Grid have an impressive track record of building energy grids in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and in West Asia, outcompeting other firms through Beijing’s subsidies.

Through this work, SOEs have amassed a wealth of experience working in tough environments, making them attractive partners for Latin American countries that may have unreliable energy grids. Today, SOEs own nearly US$24.4 billion in energy grids in South America, with US$8.9 billion in deals closing or reaching a sale agreement in 2020 alone.

SOE energy grid investments in South America do not yet include any greenfield projects. They are all acquisitions. For example, in June 2020 State Grid announced its acquisition of a 100% stake in Chilquinta Energía S.A., the Chilean arm of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, as well as two additional companies that provide electric construction and maintenance services for Chilquinta.

The acquisition strategy enables China’s firms to enter the market more easily, relying on existing systems and know-how. It also may provide State Grid – and by extension the state – insight into the operations of US energy companies such as Sempra.

China’s evolving interests in the region

China is taking on a new role in the region as a service provider through its recent investments in energy grids. Historically, economic engagement in South America fits with the China’s long-standing pursuit of commodities and export markets globally.

Beijing’s international engagement is shaped by its partner regions. Rich areas like the US and the EU generally draw larger amounts of investment, while developing regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia draw greater construction activity.

Since 2005, however, South America has hosted US$54 billion in construction contracts and received US$129 billion in investment. The lion’s share of the investment has focused on the extraction of commodities, such as oil in Venezuela and copper in Peru. Yet, with the investment in energy grids a new trend is emerging.

China’s approach in the region to date has relied on carrots rather than sticks. However, the pandemic is shifting dynamics worldwide.

China’s trade retaliation for Australia’s endorsement of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 demonstrates that Beijing is willing to leverage commercial tools in diplomatic conflicts. Australia is home to over US$100 billion in investment from China and, like South America, is a major supplier of commodities.

As Beijing’s global ambitions grow, cultivating allies in South America could prove beneficial. Already, the CPC has dangled economic engagement and used infrastructure cooperation to entice Latin American countries into severing ties with Taiwan.

Responding to China’s new presence in South America

Policymakers in Washington are grappling with how to respond to the BRI and China’s broader economic engagement in developing countries. An immediate step should be informing other countries of the risks of doing business with entities from China through diplomatic exchanges and open-source intelligence sharing.

Furthermore, the US, which has long viewed foreign involvement in strategic sectors in Latin America as a potential threat to its own national security, should determine which sectors and countries are of high priority to narrow the China’s gains in those markets.

Most countries treat electrical grids as key assets, limiting foreign investment in the sector. South American countries may welcome the investment from China now, but they would do well to better understand the specific risks that come with it. Subsequently, the US should lead in developing the region’s critical infrastructure, ultimately safeguarding stability in the Western Hemisphere.

Cecilia Joy-Pérez is an associate at Pointe Bello, specialising in business intelligence with a particular focus on China’s outward foreign investment

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Onergia, one of the two energy cooperatives operating in Mexico today, installs photovoltaic systems, such as this one at the Tosepan Titataniske Union of Cooperatives in the municipality of Cuetzalan, in the southern state of Puebla. CREDIT: Courtesy of Onergia

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Aug 31 2020 (IPS)

A Mexican solar energy cooperative, Onergia, seeks to promote decent employment, apply technological knowledge and promote alternatives that are less polluting than fossil fuels, in one of the alternative initiatives with which Mexico is seeking to move towards an energy transition.

“We organised ourselves in a cooperative for an energy transition that will rethink the forms of production, distribution and consumption to build a healthier and fairer world,” Onergia founding partner and project director Antonio Castillo told IPS. “In this sector, it has been more difficult; we have to invest in training and go against the logic of the market.”

The eight-member cooperative, created in 2017, has so far installed some 50 photovoltaic systems, mainly in the south-central state of Puebla."A public policy is needed that would allow us to move towards the transition. Getting people to adopt alternatives depends on public policy. It is fundamental for people to have the freedom to choose how to consume. It is our job to organise as consumers." --
Antonio Castillo

Castillo explained by phone that the cooperative works with middle- and upper-class households that can finance the cost of the installation as well as with local communities keen on reducing their energy bill, offering more services and expanding access to energy.

In the case of local communities, the provision of solar energy is part of broader social projects in which the beneficiary organisations’ savings and loan cooperatives design the financial structure to carry out the work. A basic household system can cost more than 2,200 dollars and a larger one, over 22,000.

“The communities are motivated to adopt renewable energy as a strategy to defend the land against threats from mining or hydroelectric companies,” said Castillo. “They don’t need to be large-scale energy generators, because they already have the local supply covered. The objective is to provide the communities with alternatives.”

Onergia, a non-profit organisation, promotes distributed or decentralised generation.

In Mexico, energy cooperatives are a rarity. In fact, there are only two, due to legal, technical and financial barriers, even though the laws governing cooperatives recognise their potential role in energy among other diverse sectors. The other, Cooperativa LF del Centro, provides services in several states but is not a generator of electricity.

The Electricity Industry Law, in effect since 2014, allows the deployment of local projects smaller than one megawatt, but practically excludes them from the electricity auctions that the government had been organising since 2016 and that the administration of leftwing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador put a stop to after he took office in December 2018.

Since then, López Obrador has opted to fortify the state monopolies of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) oil giant, which translates into favouring fossil fuels over renewable sources.

The National Electric System Development Programme 2018-2032 projects that fossil fuels will represent 67 percent of the energy mix in 2022; wind energy, 10 percent; hydroelectric, nine percent; solar, four percent; nuclear, three percent, and geothermal and bioenergy, four percent.

In 2032, the energy outlook will not vary much, as fossil fuels will account for 60 percent; wind, nuclear and geothermal energy will rise to 13, eight and three percent, respectively; hydroelectric power will drop to eight percent; while solar and bioenergy will remain the same.

In Mexico, rural communities are guaranteeing their electricity supply by using clean sources, thus furthering the energy transition to micro and mini-scale generation. The photo shows the “Laatzi-Duu” ecotourism site (the name means “standing plain” in the Zapotec indigenous language) which is self-sufficient thanks to a solar panel installed on its roof, in the municipality of San Juan Evangelista Analco in the southern state of Oaxaca. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The government cancelled the call for long-term electric auctions that allowed private companies to build wind and solar plants and sell the energy to CFE. But these tenders privileged private Mexican and foreign capital and large-scale generation.

In a dialogue with IPS, independent researcher Carlos Tornel questioned the predominant energy design promoted by the 2013 reform that opened up the hydrocarbon and electricity markets to private capital, and the form of energy production based on passive consumers.

“We don’t have an effective legal framework to promote that kind of energy transition,” said the expert via WhatsApp from the northeast English city of Durham. “A free market model was pursued, which allowed the entry of megaprojects through auctions and allowed access to those who could offer a very low cost of generation, which could only be obtained on a large scale.”

With that strategy, he added, “small projects were left out. And the government did not put in place economic incentives to foment cooperative schemes.”

“We need a more active model focused on the collective good,” added Tornel, who is earning a PhD in Human Geography at Durham University in the UK.

Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America with a population of 129 million, depends heavily on hydrocarbons and will continue to do so in the medium term if it does not accelerate the energy transition.

In the first quarter of 2019, gross generation totaled 80,225 gigawatt hours (Gwh), up from 78,167 in the same period last year. Gas-fired combined cycle plants (with two consecutive cycles, conventional turbine and steam) contributed 40,094, conventional thermoelectric 9,306, and coal-fired 6,265.

Hydroelectric power plants contributed 5,137 Gwh; wind fields 4,285; nuclear power plants 2,382; and solar stations 1,037.

The Energy Transition Law of 2015 stipulates that clean energy must meet 30 percent of demand by 2021 and 35 percent by 2024. By including hydropower and nuclear energy, the country will have no problem reaching these goals.

Residents of the small rural community of Amatlán, in the municipality of Zoquiapan in the state of Puebla, oversee the operation of photovoltaic panels installed by the Mexican cooperative Onergia. This type of cooperative can help rural communities in Mexico access clean energy, particularly solar power. CREDIT: Courtesy of Onergia

By early August, the government’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) had granted 310 permits for solar generation, small-scale production and self-supply, totaling almost 22,000 Mw.

The 2017 report Renewable Energy Auctions and Participatory Citizen Projects, produced by the international non-governmental Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), cites, with respect to Mexico, the obligation for investors to form self-sufficient companies, which complicates attempts to develop local ventures.

Onergia’s Castillo stressed the need for a clear and stable regulatory framework.

“A public policy is needed that would allow us to move towards the transition,” he said. “Getting people to adopt alternatives depends on public policy. It is fundamental for people to have the freedom to choose how to consume. It is our job to organise as consumers.”

Affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Onergia is reviewing the way it works and its financial needs to generate its own power supply. It also works with the Renewable Energies Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the design and installation of solar power systems.

In March, the government’s National Council for Science and Technology launched a strategic national programme on energy transition that will promote sustainable rural energy projects and community solar energy, to be implemented starting in 2021.

In addition, the energy ministry is set to announce the Special Energy Transition Programme 2019-2024.

But to protect the CFE, the CRE is blocking approval of the development of collective distributed generation schemes, which would allow citizens to sell surplus energy to other consumers, and the installation of storage systems in solar parks.

Tornel criticised the lack of real promotion of renewable sources.

“The Mexican government has been inconsistent in its handling of this issue,” he maintained. “They talk about guaranteeing energy security through hydrocarbons. There is no plan for an energy transition based on renewables or on supporting community projects. We have no indication that they support renewable, and that’s very worrying.”

The REN21 report recommends reserving a quota for participatory citizen projects and facilitating access to energy purchase agreements, which ensures the efficiency of tenders and the effectiveness of guaranteed tariffs for these undertakings.

In addition, it proposes the establishment of an authority for citizen projects, capacity building, promotion of community energy and specific national energy targets for these initiatives.

In Germany, wind and solar energy coexist with energy generated by burning fossil fuels in the Western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Climate experts say it’s crucial to narrow down the global emissions gap to keep global temperature rise within the safe 1.5 degree C warming goal. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
COLOGNE, Germany, Jul 19 2016 (IPS)

Immerath, 90 km away from the German city of Cologne, has become a ghost town. The local church bells no longer ring and no children are seen in the streets riding their bicycles. Its former residents have even carried off their dead from its cemetery.

Expansion of Garzweiler, an open-pit lignite mine, has led to the town’s remaining residents being relocated to New Immerath, several kilometres away from the original town site, in North Rhine-Westphalia, whose biggest city is Cologne.

The fate of this small village, which in 2015 was home to 70 people, reflects the advances, retreats and contradictions of the world-renowned transition to renewable energy in Germany.

Since 2011, Germany has implemented a comprehensive energy transition policy, backed by a broad political consensus, seeking to make steps towards a low-carbon economy. This has encouraged the generation and consumption of alternative energy sources.

But so far these policies have not facilitated the release from the country’s industry based on coal and lignite, a highly polluting fossil fuel.

“The initial phases of the energy transition have been successful so far, with strong growth in renewables, broad public support for the idea of the transition and major medium and long term goals for government,” told IPS analyst Sascha Samadi of the non-governmental Wuppertal Institute, devoted to studies on energy transformation.

Renewable electricity generation accounted for 30 percent of the total of Germany’s electrical power in 2015, while lignite fuelled 24 percent, coal 18 percent, nuclear energy 14 percent, gas 8.8 percent and other sources the rest.

This European country is the third world power in renewable energies – excluding hydropower – and holds third place in wind power and biodiesel and fifth place in geothermal power.

Germany is also renowned for having the highest solar power capacity per capita in photovoltaic technology, even though its climate is not the most suitable for that purpose.

But the persistence of fossil fuels casts a shadow on this green energy matrix.

“The successful phasing out of fossil fuels entails a great deal of planning and organisation. If we do not promote renewables, we will have to import energy at some point,” Johannes Remmel, the minister for climate protection and the environment for North Rhine-Westphalia, told IPS.

Germany has nine lignite mines operating in three regions. Combined, the mines employ 16,000 people, produce 170 million tonnes of lignite a year and have combined reserves of three billion tonnes. China, Greece and Poland are other large world producers of lignite.

A part of the Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine, in North Rhine-Westphalia. One of the greatest challenges facing the energy transition in Germany is the future of this polluting fuel. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Garzweiler, which is owned by the private company RWE, produces 35 million tonnes of lignite a year. From a distance it is possible to see its cut-out terraces and blackened soil, waiting for giant steel jaws to devour it and start to separate the lignite.

Lignite from this mine fuels nearby electricity generators at Frimmersdorf, Neurath, Niederaussen and Weisweiller, some of the most polluting power plants in Germany.

RWE is one of the four main power generation companies in Germany, together with E.ON, EnBW and Swedish-based Vattenfall.

Coal has an expiry date

The fate of coal is different. The government has already decided that its demise will be in 2018, when the two mines that are still currently active will cease to operate.

The Rhine watershed, comprising North Rhine-Westphalia together with other states, has traditionally been the hub of Germany’s industry. Mining and its consumers are an aftermath of that world, whose rattling is interspersed with the emergence of a decarbonized economy.

A tour of the mine and the adjoining power plant of  Ibberbüren in North Rhine-Westphalia shows the struggle between two models that still coexist.

In the mine compound, underground mouths splutter the coal that feeds the hungry plant at a pace of 157 kilowatt-hour per tonne.

In 2015 the mine produced 6.2 million tonnes of extracted coal, an amount projected to be reduced to 3.6 million tonnes this year and next, and to further drop to 2.9 million in 2018.

The mine employs 1,600 people and has a 300,000 tonne inventory which needs to be sold by 2018.

“I am a miner, and I am very much attached to my job. I speak on behalf of my co-workers. It is hard to close it down. There is a feeling of sadness, we are attending our own funeral”, told IPS the manager of the mine operator, Hubert Hüls.

Before the energy transition policy was in place, laws that promoted renewable energies had been passed in 1991 and 2000, with measures such as a special royalty fee included in electricity tariffs paid to generators that are fuelled by renewable energy sources.

The renewable energy sector invests some 20 billion dollars yearly and employs around 370.000 people.

Another measure, adopted in 2015 by the government in Berlin, sets out an auction plan for the purchase of photovoltaic solar power, but opponents have argued that large generation companies are being favoured over small ones as the successful bidder will be the one offering the lowest price.

Energy transition and climate change

Energy transition also seeks to meet Germany’s global warming mitigation commitments.

Germany has undertaken to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent in 2020 and by 95 per cent in 2015. Moreover, it has set itself the goal of increasing the share of renewable energies in the end-use power market from the current figure of 12 per cent to 60 per cent in 2050.

In the second half of the year, the German government will analyse the drafting of the 2050 Climate Action Plan, which envisages actions towards reducing by half the amount of emissions from the power sector and a fossil fuel phase-out programme.

In 2014, Germany reduced its emissions by 346 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 27.7 per cent of the 1990 total. However, the German Federal Agency for Environment warned that in 2015 emissions went up by six million tonnes, amounting to 0.7 per cent, reaching a total of 908 million tonnes.

Polluting gases are derived mainly from the generation and use of energy, transport and agriculture.

In 2019, the government will review the current incentives for the development of renewable energies and will seek to make adjustments aimed at fostering the sector.

Meanwhile, Germany’s last three nuclear power plants will cease operation in 2022. However, Garzweiler mine will continue to operate until 2045.

“There are technological, infrastructure, investment, political, social and innovation challenges to overcome. Recent decisions taken by the government are indicative of a lack of political will to undertake the tough decisions that are required for deep decarbonisation”, pointed out Samadi.

Companies “now try to mitigate the damage and leave the search for solutions in the hands of the (central) government. There will be fierce debate over how to expand renewable energies. The process may be slowed but not halted”, pointed out academic Heinz-J Bontrup, of the state University of Applied Sciences Gelsenkirchen.

Meanwhile, the regional government has opted to reduce the Garzweiler mine extension plan, leaving 400 million tonnes of lignite underground.

Nabela Zainab prepares tea on the biogas stove in her home in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The stove has eased indoor air pollution and restored her health. Credit: Saleem Shaikh/IPS

By Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio
FAISALABAD, Pakistan, Jun 28 2016 (IPS)

Nabela Zainab no longer chokes and coughs when she cooks a meal, thanks to the new biogas-fueled two-burner stove in her kitchen.

Zainab, 38, from Faisalabad, a town 360 kilometers from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, is among the beneficiaries of a flagship pilot biogas project to free poor households and farmers of their dependence on wood, cattle dung and diesel fuel for cooking needs and running irrigation pumps.

She got the biogas unit, worth 400 dollars, at a 50 percent subsidised rate from the NGO Rural Support Programme Network under the latter’s five-year Pakistan Domestic Biogas Programme (PDBP).

In the past, Zainab had to collect wood from a distant forest three times a week and carry it home balanced on her head.

“Getting rid of that routine is a life-changing experience,” she told IPS.

The four-cubic-meter biogas plant requires the dung of three buffalos every day to meet the energy needs of a four-member family, including cooking, heating, washing and bathing for 24 hours.

It saves nearly 160 kg of fuelwood a day, worth 20 to 25 dollars every month for a four-member family.

The wife of a smallholder vegetable farmer, Zainab says she has suffered from a cough and sore eyes for the last 20 years. “We have no access to piped natural gas in our village. The rising cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) was not feasible either for us poor. However, we had no choice but to continue burning buffalo dung cakes or fuelwood,” she said.

Last January, cattle farmer Amir Nawaz installed a biogas plant of eight-cubic-meter capacity at a cost of 700 dollars under the PDBP. He got subsidy of nearly 300 dollars.

“I am now saving nearly 60 dollars a month that I used to spend on LPG,” he told IPS.

His plant is fueled by the dung of his six buffalos — enough to meet household gas needs for cooking and heating.

Nawaz also uses biogas to power wall-mounted lamps in his house at night, saving another 15 dollars a month.

“Above all, this has helped our children do schoolwork and for me to finish up the household chores in the evening hours,” Nawaz’s wife, Shaista Bano, said with a smile.

As many as 5,360 biogas plants of varying sizes have been installed in 12 districts of Punjab province over five years (2009-2015), ridding nearly 43,000 people of exposure to smoke from wood and kerosene.

Nearby, 500 large biogas plants of the 25-cubic-meter capacity each have also been introduced in all 12 districts of Punjab province under the PBDP, namely: Faisalabad, Sargodha, Khushab, Jhang, Chniot, Toba Tek Singh, Shekhapura, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Pakpatan, Nankana Sahib and Okara.

Such plants provide gas for a family of 10 for cooking, heating and running irrigation pumps for six hours daily.

Rab Nawaz bought one of these large plants for 1,700 dollars. PBDP provided him a subsidy of 400 dollars as part of its biogas promotion in the area.

“I use the dung of 18 buffalos to produce nearly 40 cubic meters of gas every day to run my diesel-turned-biogas-run irrigation pump for six hours and cooking stove for three times a day,” he told IPS, while shoveling out his cattle pen in Sargodha.

The father of three says that after eliminating diesel — which is damaging to the environment and health, as well as expensive — he saves 10-12 dollars daily.

As a part of sustainability of the biogas programme, 50 local biogas construction companies have been set up. International technical experts trained nearly 450 people in construction, maintenance and repair of the biogas units.

Initiated in 2009 by the non-governmental organization National Rural Support Programme – Pakistan (NRSP-Pakistan), PBDP was financed by the Netherlands Embassy in Pakistan and technical support was extended by Winrock International and SNV (Netherlands-based nongovernmental development organisations).

“The biogas programme aimed to establish a commercially viable biogas sector. To that extent, the main actors at the supply side of the sector are private Biogas Construction Enterprises (BCEs) providing biogas construction and after sales services to households. At the demand side of the sector, Rural Support Programmes organized under the RSPN will be the main implementing partners, but will also include NGOs, farmers’ organizations and dairy organizations,” NRSP CEO Shandana Khan told IPS.

“The 5,600 biogas plants are now saving nearly 13,000 tons of fuelwood burning worth two million dollars and 169,600 liters of kerosene oil for night lamp use,” she said.

“Implemented at a total cost of around 3.3 million dollars, the biogas plants have helped reduce the average three to four hours a woman spent collecting fuel-wood and cooking daily. These women now get enough time for socialization, economic activity and health is returning to households thanks to the biogas plants… which provide instant gas for cooking, healing and dishwashing,” she said.

More significantly, the programme is helping avoid nearly 16,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, she calculated.

At present around 18 percent of households in Pakistan, mostly in urban areas, have access to natural gas. Over 80 percent of rural people rely on biomass (wood, cattle dung, dried straw, etc) for cooking, heating and other household chores, according to Pakistan’s Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB).

Chairman of the AEDB Khawaja Muhammad Asif said, “It is unviable for the large number of rural households to have access to piped natural gas. However, biogas offer a promising and viable solution to meet energy needs of the households in the country’s rural areas, which are home to 60 percent of the people live and 80 percent of over 180 million cattle heads.”

He argued that some 80 million cattle and buffaloes and an estimated 100 million sheep and goats and 400 million poultry birds in the country can also provide sufficient raw material for substantial production of biogas.

“This way, the biogas can be tapped to cope with a range of health, environmental and health and economic benefits,” he stressed.

Pakistan is home to over 160 million head of cattle (buffalo, cow, camel, donkey, goat and lamb). The dung of these livestock can feed five million biogas plants of varying sizes, according to energy experts at the National University of Science and Technology (Islamabad) and Faisalabad Agriculture University (Punjab province).

This can help plug the yawning gas supply gap. According to government figures, 73 percent of 200 million people (a majority of them in rural areas) have no access to piped natural gas. Such people rely on LPG gas cylinders and fuelwood.

A Congolese man transports charcoal on his bicycle outside Lubumbashi in the DRC. An estimated 138 million poor households spend 10 billion dollars annually on energy-related products such as charcoal, candles, kerosene and firewood. Credit: Miriam Mannak/IPS

By Friday Phiri
PEMBA, Zambia, Jun 16 2016 (IPS)

It’s just after two p.m. on a sunny Saturday and 51-year-old Moses Kasoka is seated outside the grass-thatched hut which serves both as his kitchen and bedroom.

Physically challenged since birth, Kasoka has but one option for survival—begging. But he thinks life would have been different had he been connected to electricity. “I know what electricity can do, especially for people in my condition,” he says.

“With power, I would have been rearing poultry for income generation,” says Kasoka, who is among the estimated 645 million Africans lacking access to electricity, hindering their economic potential.

“As you can see, I sleep beside an open fire every night, which serves for both lighting and additional warmth in the night,” adds Kasoka, inviting this reporter into his humble home.

But while Kasoka remains in wishful mode, a kilometer away is Phinelia Hamangaba, manager at Pemba District Dairy milk collection centre, who is now accustomed to having an alternative plan in case of power interruptions, as the cooperative does not have a stand-by generator.

Phinelia has daily responsibility for ensuring that 1,060 litres of milk supplied by over a hundred farmers does not ferment before it is collected by Parmalat Zambia, with which they have a contract.

“Electricity is our major challenge, but in most cases, we get prior information of an impending power interruption, so we prepare,” says the young entrepreneur. “But when we have the worst case scenario, farmers understand that in business, there is profit and loss,” she explains, adding that they are called to collect back their fermented milk.

Moses Kasoka sits in his wheelchair outside his grass-thatched hut in Pemba, Zambia. Credit: Friday Phiri/IPS

The cooperative is just one of several small-scale industries struggling with country-wide power rationing. Due to poor rainfall in the past two seasons, there has not been enough water for maximum generation at the country’s main hydropower plants.

According to the latest Economist Intelligence Unit report, Zambia’s power deficit might take years to correct, especially at the 1,080MW Kariba North Bank power plant where power stations on both the Zambian and Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi River are believed to have consumed far more than their allotted water over the course of 2015 and into early 2016.

The report highlights that in February, the reservoir at Kariba Dam fell to only 1.5 meters above the level that would necessitate a full shutdown of the plant. Although seasonal rains have slightly replenished the reservoir, it remained only 17 percent full as of late March, compared to 49 percent last year. And refilling the lake requires a series of healthy rainy seasons coupled with a moderation of output from the power plant—neither of which are a certainty.

This scenario is just but one example of Africa’s energy and climate change nexus, highlighting how poor energy access hinders economic progress, both at individual and societal levels.

And as the most vulnerable to climate change vagaries, but also in need of energy to support the economic ambitions of its poverty-stricken people, Africa’s temptation to take an easy route through carbon-intensive energy systems is high.

“We are tired of poverty and lack of access to energy, so we need to deal with both of them at the same time, and to specifically deal with poverty, we need energy to power industries,” remarked Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the 2016 African Development Bank Annual meetings in Lusaka, adding that renewables can only meet part of the need.

But former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan believes Africa can develop using a different route. “African nations do not have to lock into developing high-carbon old technologies; we can expand our power generation and achieve universal access to energy by leapfrogging into new technologies that are transforming energy systems across the world. Africa stands to gain from developing low-carbon energy, and the world stands to gain from Africa avoiding the high-carbon pathway followed by today’s rich world and emerging markets,” says Annan, who now chairs the Africa Progress Panel (APP).

In its 2015 report Power, People, Planet: Seizing Africa’s Energy and Climate Opportunities, the APP outlines Africa’s alternative, without using the carbon-intensive systems now driving economic growth, which have taken the world to the current tipping point. And Africa is therefore being asked to lead the transition to avert an impending disaster.

The report recommends Africa’s leaders use climate change as an incentive to put in place policies that are long overdue and to demonstrate leadership on the international stage. In the words of the former president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, “For Africa, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. If Africa focuses on smart choices, it can win investments in the next few decades in climate resilient and low emission development pathways.”

But is the financing mechanism good enough for Africa’s green growth? The APP notes that the current financing architecture does not meet the demands, and that the call for Africa’s leadership does not negate the role of international cooperation, which has over the years been a clarion call from African leaders—to be provided with finance and reliable technology.

The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) mourns the vague nature of the Paris agreement in relation to technology transfer for Africa. “The agreement vaguely talks about technologies without being clear on what these are, leaving the door open to all kinds of false solutions,” reads part of the civil society’s analysis of the Paris agreement.

However, other proponents argue for home solutions. According to available statistics, it is estimated that 138 million poor households spend 10 billion dollars annually on energy-related products, such as charcoal, candles, kerosene and firewood.

But what would it take to expand power generation and finance energy for all? The African Development Bank believes a marginal increase in energy investment could solve the problem.

“Africa collects 545 billion dollars a year in terms of tax revenues. If you put ten percent of that to electricity, problem is solved. Second, share of the GDP going to energy sector in Africa is 0.49 percent. If you raise that to 3.4 percent, you generate 51 billion dollars straight away. So which means African countries have to put their money where their mouth is, invest in the energy sector,” says AfDB Group President, Akinwumi Adesina, who also highlights the importance of halting illicit capital flows out Africa, costing the continent around 60 billion dollars a year.

While Kasoka in Southern Zambia’s remote town awaits electricity , the country’s Scaling Solar programme, driving the energy diversification agenda, may just be what would light up his dream of rearing poultry. According to President Edgar Lungu, the country looks to plug the gaping supply deficit with up to 600 MW of solar power, of which 100 MW is already under construction.

With the world at the tipping point, Africa will have to beat the odds of climate change to develop. Desmond Tutu summarises what is at stake this way: “We can no longer tinker about the edges. We can no longer continue feeding our addiction to fossil fuels as if there were no tomorrow. For there will be no tomorrow. As a matter of urgency we must begin a global transition to a new safe energy economy.

“This requires fundamentally rethinking our economic systems, to put them on a sustainable and more equitable footing,” the South African Nobel Laureate says in the APP 2015 report.

Zimbabwe’s planned Batoka Gorge power project on the Zambezi River is expected to generate 2,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity, upward from an initial 1,600 MW, but the worsening power cuts that are being blamed on low water levels have renewed concerns about the effects of climate change on mega dams.

Batoka Gorge Hydro Electric Power plant. Credit: Construction Review Online

In the past two months, the country’s energy utility has increased power rationing, with rolling power blackouts being experienced for up to 20 hours across the country per day.

Zimbabwe has for years relied on hydroelectricity, and is one of a number of African countries that are banking on hydropower to spur economic growth, with multibillion dollar dams expected to generate thousands of megawatts.

While there is no timetable of when construction of the 3 billion dollar Batoka Gorge Dam will commence and whose eventual economic dividend will only be realised after a decade of construction, it will add much needed energy in Zimbabwe where power generation stands at around 1,600 MW against a national demand of 2,200 MW.

Officials say on completion of the Batoka hydropower plant, the country will be a power exporter.

However, the long running power crisis has stalled economic expansion and has in fact forced the closure of major companies, the latest being Sable Chemicals, which was this month switched off the national grid in what energy minister Samuel Udenge said was part of short-term strategy to avail energy to other sectors.

But the switch-off forced the country’s sole fertiliser plant to shut down operation and left more than 500 employees jobless, company officials say.

The company owes the power utility 150 million dollars.

According to Minister Undenge, 80 per cent of Zimbabwe does not have access to electricity, and the Batoka Gorge hydropower plant, a joint project with Zambia that will draw water from the Zambezi, a transboundary water body shared by eight countries, is expected to boost power production and bring electricity to remote rural areas.

Early this month, Minister Undenge told parliament that the Zambezi River catchment area was affected by rainfall the patterns of other countries.

“Water is still flowing into the Zambezi River from the north, but we are drawing more water than what is flowing in, hence the continued decline in the water level,” Undende said, explaining the reduced power production.

It is these concerns about low water levels that have experts worried, with questions being raised about whether mega dams are viable investments in the long term, citing climate uncertainty and concerns about reduced run-off that would affect dam water levels and ultimately reduce power generation.

In fact, the worsening power crisis in both Zimbabwe and Zambia is being blamed on low water levels at the Zambezi river.

Researchers at International Rivers, an organisation that looks at the state of the world’s rivers and how local communities can benefit from them, warn that the big dam projects could be rendered useless in the long term because of climate change and reduced run-off.

They favour smaller dams for localised power generation, but smaller dams also cost money which Zimbabwe does not have.

Last year, the climate ministry announced that the country will be constructing more dams to cushion the county against climate uncertainty, at the same time advising heavy industrial electricity consumers to construct their own power generating plants.

In the absence of these private power generators, the Batoka Gorge Dam is being touted as the ultimate solution to the longstanding energy deficit despite warnings that the project could present its own problems as it does not address climate-related future realities.

Peter Bosshard, Interim Executive Director of International Rivers, says the Zambezi river basin, the location of the Batoka Gorge Dam, has one of the most variable climates in the world which will increase the dam’s hydrological risks.

“The (UN’s) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that the river (Zambezi) may suffer the worst potential climate impact among eleven major African river basins,” Bosshard told IPS.

“Multiple studies have estimated that streamflow in the Zambezi will decrease by 26 to 40 per cent by 2050,” he said, adding that “in spite of these serious predictions, the proposed Batoka Gorge Dam has not been evaluated for the risks of climate change.”

But Hodson Makurira, a senior hydrologist at the University of Zimbabwe does not agree.

“That would be an oversimplification of a complicated and highly uncertain projection of future events,” he told IPS.

“The same climate change predictions are forecasting an increase in extreme events, droughts and floods. You would (then) want to capture as much flood water as possible through increased storage. That would cushion you against periods of low flows,” Makurira said.

“Nobody knows the exact magnitude of reduction in flows due to climate change so it may still make economic sense to build dams,” he told IPS.

Bosshard said the dam project’s feasibility study dates from 1993, “and climate change considerations have not been integrated.”

“The project is based on historical streamflow data, which do reflect future realities. Investors, financiers and tax payers should be aware that the studies for this multi-billion dollar project seriously over-estimate its economic viability,” Bosshard said.

But for Minister Undenge, who is increasingly under pressure to solve Zimbabwe’s energy crisis, neither financing nor climate change will stop this ambitious mega dam.

(End)

A geothermal drilling rig at the Menengai site in Kenya's Rift Valley to exploit energy which is more sustainable than that produced from fossil fuels. A Climate Change Bill now before the Kenyan parliament seeks to provide the legal and institutional framework for mitigation and adaption to the effects of climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Jul 27 2015 (IPS)

Alexander Muyekhi, a construction worker from Ebubayi village in the heart of Vihiga County in Western Kenya, and his school-going children can now enjoy a tiny solar kit supplied by the British-based Azuri Technologies to light their house and play their small FM radio.

This has saved the family from use of kerosene tin-lamps, which are dim and produce unfriendly smoke, but many other residents in the village – and elsewhere in the country – are not so lucky because they cannot afford the 1000 shillings (10 dollars) deposit for the kit, and 80 weekly instalments of 120 shillings (1.2 dollars).

“Such climate-friendly kits are very important, particularly for the rural poor,” said Philip Kilonzo, Technical Advisor for Natural Resources & Livelihoods at ActionAid International Kenya. “But for families who survive on less than a dollar per day, it becomes a tall order for them to pay the required deposit, as well as the weekly instalments.”“Once it [Climate Change Bill] becomes law, we will deliberately use it as a legal instrument to reduce or exempt taxes on such climate-friendly gadgets and on projects that are geared towards low carbon growth” - Dr Wilbur Ottichilo, Kenyan MP

It was due to such bottlenecks that Dr Wilbur Ottichilo, a member of parliament for Emuhaya constituency in Western Kenya, and chair of the Parliamentary Network on Renewable Energy and Climate Change, moved a motion in parliament to enact a Climate Change Bill, which has already been discussed, and is now being subjected to public scrutiny before becoming law.

“Once it becomes law, we will deliberately use it as a legal instrument to reduce or exempt taxes on such climate-friendly gadgets and on projects that are geared towards low carbon growth,” said Ottichilo.

While Kenya makes a low net contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the country’s Draft National Climate Change Framework Policy notes that a significant number of priority development initiatives will impact on the country’s levels of emissions.

In collaboration with development partners, the country is already investing in increased geothermal electricity in the energy sector to counter this situation, switching movement of freight from road to rail in the transport sector, reforestation in the forestry sector, and agroforestry in the agricultural sector.

“With a legal framework in place, it will be possible to increase such projects that are geared towards mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change,” said Ottichilo.

The Climate Change Bill seeks to provide the legal and institutional framework for mitigation and adaption to the effects of climate change, to facilitate and enhance response to climate change and to provide guidance and measures for achieving low carbon climate-resilient development.

“We received the Bill from the National Assembly towards the end of March, we studied it for possible amendments, and we subjected it to public scrutiny as required by the constitution before it was read in the senate for the second time on Jul. 22, 2015,” Ekwee Ethuro, Speaker of the Senate, told IPS.

“After this, we are going to return it to the National Assembly so that it can be forwarded to the president for signing it into law.”

The same bill was first rejected by former President Mwai Kibaki on the grounds that there had been a lack of public involvement in its creation. “We are very careful this time not to repeat the same mistake,” said Ethuro.

Under the law, a National Climate Change Council is to be set up which, among others, will coordinate the formulation of national and county climate change action plans, strategies and policies, and make them available to the public.

“This law is a very important tool for civil society and all other players because it will give us an opportunity to manage and even fund-raise for climate change adaptation and mitigation projects,” said, John Kioli, chair of the Kenya Climate Change Working Group (KCCWG).

Evidence of climate change in Kenya is based on statistical analysis of trends in historical records of temperature, rainfall, sea level rise, mountain glacier coverage, and climate extremes.

Temperature and rainfall records from the Kenya Meteorological Department over the last 50 years provide clear evidence of climate change in Kenya, with temperatures generally showing increasing trends in many parts of the country starting from the early 1960s. This has also been confirmed by data in the State of the Environment reports published by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA).

As a result, the country now experiences prolonged droughts, unreliable rainfall patterns, floods, landslides and many more effects of climate change, which experts say will worsen with time.

Furthermore, 83 percent of Kenya’s landmass is either arid or semi-arid, making the country even more vulnerable to climate change, whose impacts cut across diverse aspects of society, economy, health and the environment.

“We seek to embrace climate-friendly food production systems such as use of greenhouses, we need to minimise post-harvest losses and food wastages, and we need to adapt to new climate friendly technologies,” said Ottichilo. “All these will work very well for us once we have a supporting legal environment.”

Edited by Phil Harris

An electricity pylon in Somaliland being repaired by Edwin Mireri. Credit: IPS

By a Global Information Network correspondent
CAPE TOWN, Jul 14 2015 (IPS)

Sub-Saharan Africa is still far behind in its ability to generate electricity, hampering growth and frustrating its ambitions to catch up with the rest of the world.

All of sub-Saharan Africa’s power generating capacity is less than South Korea’s, and a quarter of it is unproductive at any given moment because of the continent’s aging infrastructure. The World Bank estimates that blackouts alone cut the gross domestic products of sub-Saharan countries by 2.1 percent.

This dismaying picture was echoed in the annual report of the Africa Progress Panel, released in June. Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan heads the panel. The report foresees electricity coming to all homes and businesses in Africa – by 2080.

Graca Machel, a member of the panel and the former wife of Nelson Mandela, said she was taken aback by the prospect of a 65-year wait for electricity. The report also estimated that an investment of 55 billion dollars would be needed yearly to achieve universal access.

Presenting the report at the World Economic Forum Africa in Cape Town, titled “Power People Plant: Seizing Africa’s Energy and Climate Opportunities,” Annan noted that some African countries are already leading the world in low-carbon climate-resilient development.

“African countries do not have to lock into high-carbon old technologies; we can expand our power generation and achieve universal access by leapfrogging into new technologies,” he said.

However, he cautioned that Africa’s energy challenge was substantial. “Over 600 million people still do not have access to modern energy. It is shocking that Sub-Saharan Africa’s electricity consumption is less than that of Spain and on current trends it will take until 2080” to catch up.

Modern energy also means clean cooking facilities that don’t pollute household air, he went on. “An estimated 600,000 Africans die each year as a result of household air pollution, half of them children under the age of five. On current trends, universal access to non-polluting cooking will not happen until the middle of the 22nd century.”

Africa has enormous potential for cleaner energy – natural gas and hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power – and should seek ways to move past the damaging energy systems that have brought the world to the brink of catastrophe.

The waste of scarce resources in Africa’s energy systems remains stark and disturbing. Current highly centralised energy systems often benefit the rich and bypass the poor and are underpowered, inefficient and unequal.

Energy-sector bottlenecks and power shortages cost the region 2-4 per cent of GDP annually, undermining sustainable economic growth, jobs and investment. They also reinforce poverty, especially for women and people in rural areas.

“It is indefensible that Africa’s poorest people are paying among the world’s highest prices for energy: a woman living in a village in northern Nigeria spends around 60 to 80 times per unit more for her energy than a resident of New York City or London,” he declared.

“Changing this is a huge investment opportunity. Millions of energy-poor, disconnected Africans, who earn less than US 2.50 a day, already constitute a US 10-billion yearly energy market.”

The panel is an advocacy group which lobbies for sustainable development in Africa and which was originally established to monitor whether the world’s leaders were meeting their commitments to Africa.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Renewable energy is at the forefront of the changes sweeping Africa, and a “triple win” is within the region’s grasp to increase agricultural productivity, improve resilience to climate change, and contribute to long-term reductions in dangerous carbon emissions.

This is the message of a new report by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Africa Progress Panel, titled Power, People, Planet: Seizing Africa’s Energy and Climate Opportunities.

The report calls for a ten-fold increase in power generation to provide all Africans with access to electricity by 2030, saying that this would reduce poverty and inequality, boost growth and provide the climate leadership that is sorely missing at the international level.

It also urges African governments, investors, and international financial institutions to scale up investment in energy significantly in order to unlock Africa’s potential as a global low-carbon superpower. “We categorically reject the idea that Africa has to choose between growth and low-carbon development. Africa needs to utilise all of its energy assets in the short term, while building the foundations for a competitive, low-carbon energy infrastructure” – Kofi Annan

“We categorically reject the idea that Africa has to choose between growth and low-carbon development,” said Annan. “Africa needs to utilise all of its energy assets in the short term, while building the foundations for a competitive, low-carbon energy infrastructure.”

Over 62 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity – and this number is rising.

The report notes that, excluding South Africa, which generates half the region’s electricity, sub-Saharan Africa uses less electricity than Spain. It would take the average Tanzanian eight years to use as much electricity as an average American consumes in a single month. And over the course of one year someone boiling a kettle twice a day in the United Kingdom uses five times more electricity than an Ethiopian consumes over the same year.

Power shortages are estimated to diminish the region’s growth by 2-4 percent a year, holding back efforts to create jobs and reduce poverty.

Despite a decade of growth, the power generation gap between Africa and other regions is widening. Nigeria, for example, is a petroleum exporting superpower, but 95 million of the country’s citizens rely on wood, charcoal and straw for energy.

The report reveals that households living on less than 2.50 dollars a day collectively spend 10 billion dollars every year on energy-related products, such as charcoal, kerosene, candles and torches.

Measured on a per unit basis, Africa’s poorest households are spending around 10 dollars/kWh on lighting – 20 times more than Africa’s richest households. By comparison, the national average cost for electricity in the United States is 0.12 dollars/kWh and in the United Kingdom 0.15 dollars/kWh.

The report says Africa’s leaders must start an energy revolution that connects the unconnected, and meets the demands of consumers, businesses and investors for affordable and reliable electricity.

It urges African governments to:

• Use the region’s natural gas to provide domestic energy as well as exports, while harnessing Africa’s vast untapped renewable energy potential.

• Cut corruption, make utility governance more transparent, strengthen regulations and increase public spending on energy infrastructure.

• Redirect the 21 billion dollars spent on subsidies for loss-making utilities and electricity consumption – which benefit mainly the rich – towards connection subsidies and renewable energy investments that deliver energy to the poor.

The report also calls for strengthened international cooperation to close Africa’s energy sector financing gap, estimated to be 55 billion dollars annually to 2030, which includes 35 billion dollars for investments in plant, transmission and distribution, and 20 billion dollars for the costs of universal access.

A global connectivity fund with a target of reaching an additional 600 million Africans by 2030 is said to be needed to drive investment in on- and off-grid energy provision, with aid donors and financial institutions doing more to unlock private investment through risk guarantees and mitigation finance.

Time to end ‘climate negotiating poker’

The report also challenges African governments and their international partners to raise the level of ambition for the crucial climate summit in Paris in December, and calls for wholesale reform of the fragmented, under-resourced and ineffective climate financing system.

G20 countries are called on set a timetable for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, with a ban on exploration and production subsidies by 2018.  “Many rich country governments tell us they want a climate deal. But at the same time billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money are subsidising the discovery of new coal, oil and gas reserves,” said Annan. “They should be pricing carbon out of the market through taxation, not subsiding a climate catastrophe.”

While recognising recent improvements in the negotiating positions of the European Union, the United States and China, the report says that current proposals still fall far short of a credible deal for limiting global warming to no more than 2˚C above pre-industrial levels.

The former U.N. Secretary-General said that “by hedging their bets and waiting for others to move first, some governments are playing poker with the planet and future generations’ lives. This is not a moment for prevarication, short-term self-interest and constrained ambition, but for bold global leadership and decisive action.”

“Countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa,” he added, “are emerging as front-runners in the global transition to low carbon energy. Africa is well positioned to expand the power generation needed to drive growth, deliver energy for all and play a leadership role in the crucial climate change negotiations.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo with African women mayors who are calling for greater attention to communities without electricity, given the inextricable link between climate change and energy. Credit: A.D. McKenzie

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, May 18 2015 (IPS)

When some 40,000 delegates, including dozens of heads of state, descend on Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year, a group of African women mayors plan to be there and make their voices heard on a range of issues, including electrification.

The mayors, representing both small and big towns on the continent, are calling for greater attention to communities without electricity, given the inextricable link between climate change and energy.

“In my commune, only one-fifth of the people have access to electricity, and this of course hampers development,” Marie Pascale Mbock Mioumnde, mayor of Nguibassal in Cameroon, told a recent meeting of women mayors in Paris.“As mayors we’re closer to the population, and when we work together, there’s hope” – Marie Pascale Mbock Mioumnde, mayor of Nguibassal, Cameroon

Mbock Mioumnde was one of 18 women mayors at last month’s meeting, hosted by Paris mayor Anne Hildalgo and France’s former environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo, who now heads the Fondation Énergies pour l’Afrique (Energy for Africa Foundation).

Organisers said the meeting was called to highlight Africa’s energy challenges in the run-up to COP 21 (the 21^st session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), which will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 and which has the French political class scrambling to show its environmental credentials.

Mbock Mioumnde told IPS in an interview that clean, renewable energy was a priority for Africa, and that political leaders were looking at various means of electrification including hydropower and photovoltaic energy and, but not necessarily, wind power – a feature in many parts of France.

“We plan to maintain this contact and this network of women mayors to see what we can accomplish,” said Mbock Mioumnde. “As mayors we’re closer to the population, and when we work together, there’s hope.”

Hidalgo, the first woman to hold the office of Paris mayor, said she wanted to support the African representatives’ appeal for “sustainable electrification”, considering that two-thirds of Africa’s population, “particularly the most vulnerable, don’t have access to electricity.”

Currently president of the International Association of Francophone Mayors (AIMF), Hidalgo said it was essential to find ways to speed up electrification in Africa, using clean technology that respects the environment and the health of citizens.

The mayors meeting in Paris in April also called for the creation of an “African agency devoted to this issue” that would be in charge of implementing the complete electrification of the continent by 2025.

Present at the conference were several representatives of France’s big energy companies such as GDF Suez – an indication that France sees a continued business angle for itself – but the gathering also attracted NGOs which have been working independently to set up solar-power installations in various African countries.

“I’m happy that women are organising on this issue. We need solidarity,” said Hidalgo, who has been urging Paris residents to become involved in climate action, in a city that has come late to environmental awareness, especially compared with many German and Swiss towns.

“The Climate Change Conference is a decisive summit for the planet’s leaders and decision-makers to reach an agreement,” Hidalgo stressed.

Climate change issues have an undeniable gender component because women are especially affected by lack of access to clean sources of energy.

Ethiopian-born, Kenya-based scientist Dr Segenet Kelemu, who was a winner of the 2014 L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science, spoke for example of growing up in a rural village in Ethiopia with no electricity, no running water and no indoor plumbing.

“I went out to collect firewood, to fetch water and to take farm produce to market. Somehow, all the back-breaking tasks in Africa are reserved for women and children,” she told a reporter.

This gender component was also raised at a meeting May 7-8 in Addis Ababa, where leaders of a dozen African countries agreed on 12 recommendations to improve the regional response to climate change.

The recommendations included increasing local technological research and development; reinforcing infrastructure for renewable energy, transportation and water; and “mainstreaming gender-responsive climate change actions”.

The meeting was part of a series of ‘Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF)’ workshops being convened though June 2015 in Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Middle East. The CVF was established to offer a South-South cooperation platform for vulnerable countries to deal with issues of climate change.

In Paris, Hidalgo’s approach includes gathering as many stakeholders as possible together to reach consensus before the U.N. summit. With Ignazio Marino, the mayor of Rome, Italy, she also invited mayors of the “capitals and big towns” of the 28 member states of the European Union to a gathering in March.

The mayors, representing some 60 million inhabitants, stressed that the “fight against climate change is a priority for our towns and the well-being of our citizens.”

Hidalgo’s office is now working on a project to have 1,000 mayors from around the world present at COP 21, a spokesperson told IPS. The stakes are high because the French government wants the summit to be a success, with a new global agreement on combating climate change.

Borloo, who was environment minister in the administration of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, used to advocate for France’s “climate justice” proposal, aimed at giving financial aid to poor countries to combat climate change.

Calling for a “climate justice plan” to allow poor countries to “adapt, achieve growth, get out of poverty and have access to energy,” Borloo was a key French player at COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009, but that conference ended in disarray. The question now is: will a greater involvement of women leaders and mayors make COP 21 a success?

Edited by Phil Harris    

By Suleiman Al-Herbish
VIENNA, May 14 2015 (IPS)

When, in 2003, Professor Richard Smalley, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, listed the top 10 problems facing humanity for the next 50 years in order of priority, energy was at the top of his list, followed by water, then food.

Suleiman Al-Herbish, Director-General of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

Years later, this energy-water-food nexus is central to the work of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and a core element of our corporate plan.

It is hard to imagine a better life when you are in darkness and the ‘heart of darkness’ is the widespread lack of access to reliable and affordable sources of modern energy. This darkness continues to impede socio-economic development worldwide.

Nothing is worse than seeing such darkness in the 21^st century first hand. In Armenia, I visited the home of Ms Anahid, one of OFID’s many beneficiaries, whose house had recently been connected to a gas grid.

In her home, I saw a picture of her young son who had been tragically killed by a falling tree while collecting firewood. His young widowed wife sat in the corner and I had overwhelming mixed feelings: immense sadness for a life lost, yet relief that it would never happen again in that region.

It is a brutal moment when one realises the terrible human loss caused by energy poverty, and recognises how easily such tragedies can be avoided.

When one works in development, a single aim is in mind: putting people first. When we put people first, the facts are painful and implausible to ignore. The numbers are absolutely staggering: 18 percent of the world’s population still lives without electricity and 38 percent without clean cooking facilities.

If all of us think of these facts each time we switch on a light, use our phone or eat a meal, the darkness that 1.3 billion people live in becomes painful to imagine and hard to ignore.“It is hard to imagine a better life when you are in darkness and the ‘heart of darkness’ is the widespread lack of access to reliable and affordable sources of modern energy. This darkness continues to impede socio-economic development worldwide”

Despite the work of so many valuable institutions, organisations and pledges, people are often forgotten, and the political will never materialises. Yet, when the will is there, things do actually happen, and believe me, for the past ten years, I have personally seen them transpire.

In 2007, through the Riyadh Declaration, at the third summit of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), member countries charged OFID with spearheading the fight against the greatest constraint to development – energy poverty – and long before it became a mainstream topic, OFID pioneered its fight against it.

OFID recognised that universal access to energy was a vital element to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and dubbed it the “Missing 9^th MDG”.

So, in September 2011, when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated: “Energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, social equity and environmental stability”, OFID roared.

And when Kandeh Yumkella, U.N. Under-Secretary-General and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, said that “the fact that so many lives continue to be blighted by the absence of electricity or other clean fuels for cooking and heating is without a doubt a shameful indictment of modern society,” OFID found an ally.

We knew that they represented many like-minded individuals who had the will to make our shared fight against energy poverty recognisable to the world.

We were exultant when, in 2012, with the launch of the U.N. Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative, energy access was finally established as a global priority. Energy poverty had finally reached the global agenda and our work throughout the years has been instrumental in attaining energy access.

OFID has been a leading partner in SE4ALL since its inception and instrumental in shaping the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the eradication of energy poverty as SDG7.

Our commitment to this mission has been practical as well as communicative. Our strategy for poverty eradication has been action-based with a revolving endowment of one billion dollars pledged by our supreme body, the Ministerial Council, in our 2012 Declaration on Energy Poverty.

Over the past few years, OFID has transformed its commitments into actions in the field. This has led the share of energy projects in OFID’s total operations to reach 27 percent in the past three years, compared with around 20 percent since inception. These resources have been distributed among 85 countries for projects ranging from infrastructure and equipment provision to research and capacity building.

As the United Nations marks its 70^th anniversary, we reflect on the historical development of humanity and our unity as an international community to achieve a better world. It is an important time for us to recognize all the efforts in building improved lives and providing dignity to all.

As idealistic as I would like to be, I know there is much more to be done, and the fight is far from over.

What drives our motivation is OFID’s incredible will to continue. Where there’s a will, there is always a way.

I always said, and will continue to say: the day an institution like OFID closes its doors because of the lack of need from its partner countries to alleviate humanity’s countless problems is a day for us all to celebrate.

In the meantime, we will continue our efforts to power lives … one by one, until no single soul living on this planet is in darkness and no mother loses her son as Ms Anahid did.

Edited by Phil Harris

Excerpt:

Driven by solar and wind, world investments in renewable energy leapt in 2014. Photo credit: Jürgen from Sandesneben, Germany/Licensed under CC BY 2.0

By Sean Buchanan
ROME, Mar 31 2015 (IPS)

Driven by solar and wind, world investments in renewable energy reversed a two-year dip last year, brushing aside the challenge from sharply lower oil prices and registering a 17 percent leap over the previous year to stand at 270 billion dollars.

These investments helped see an additional 103Gw of generating capacity – roughly that of all U.S. nuclear plants combined –around the world, making 2014 the best year ever for newly-installed capacity, according to the 9th annual “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investments” report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) released Mar. 31.

Prepared by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the report says that a continuing sharp decline in technology costs – particularly in solar but also in wind – means that every dollar invested in renewable energy bought significantly more generating capacity in 2014."Climate-friendly energy technologies are now an indispensable component of the global energy mix and their importance will only increase as markets mature, technology prices continue to fall and the need to rein in carbon emissions becomes ever more urgent" – Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP

In what was called “a year of eye-catching steps forward for renewable energy”, the report notes that wind, solar, biomass and waste-to-power, geothermal, small hydro and marine power contributed an estimated 9.1 percent of world electricity generation in 2014, up from 8.5 percent in 2013.

This, says the report, means that the world’s electricity systems emitted 1.3 gigatonnes of CO2 – roughly twice the emissions of the world’s airline industry – less than it would have if that 9.1 percent had been produced by the same fossil-dominated mix generating the other 90.9 percent of world power.

“Once again in 2014, renewables made up nearly half of the net power capacity added worldwide,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP. “These climate-friendly energy technologies are now an indispensable component of the global energy mix and their importance will only increase as markets mature, technology prices continue to fall and the need to rein in carbon emissions becomes ever more urgent.”

China saw by far the biggest renewable energy investments last year – a record 83.3 billion dollars, up 39 percent from 2013. The United States was second at 38.3 billion dollars, up seven percent on the year (although below its all-time high reached in 2011). Third came Japan at 35.7 billion dollars, 10 percent higher than in 2013 and its biggest total ever.

According to the report, a prominent feature of 2014 was the rapid expansion of renewables into new markets in developing countries, where investments jumped 36 percent to 131.3 billion dollars. China with 83.3 billion, Brazil (7.6 billion), India (7.4 billion) and South Africa (5.5 billion) were all in the top 10 investing countries, while more than one billion dollars was invested in Indonesia, Chile, Mexico, Kenya and Turkey.

Although 2014 was said to be a turnaround year for renewables after two years of shrinkage, multiple challenges remain in the form of policy uncertainty, structural issues in the electricity system and even the very nature of wind and solar generation which are dependent on breeze and sunlight.

Another challenge, says the report, is the impact of the more than 50 percent collapse in oil prices in the second half of last year.  However, according to Udo Steffens, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, the price of oil is only likely to dampen investor confidence in parts of the sector, such as solar in oil-exporting countries and biofuels in most parts of the world.

“Oil and renewables do not directly compete for power investment dollars,” said Steffens. “Wind and solar sectors should be able to carry on flourishing, particularly if they continue to cut costs per MWh. Their long-term story is just more convincing.”

Of greater concern is the erosion of investor confidence caused by increasing uncertainty surrounding government support policies for renewables.

“Europe was the first mover in clean energy, but it is still in a process of restructuring those early support mechanisms,” according to Michael Liebreich, Chairman of the Advisory Board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “In the United Kingdom and Germany we are seeing a move away from feed-in tariffs and green certificates, towards reverse auctions and subsidy caps, aimed at capping the cost of the transition to consumers.

“Southern Europe is still almost a no-go area for investors because of retroactive policy changes, most recently those affecting solar farms in Italy. In the United States there is uncertainty over the future of the Production Tax Credit for wind, but costs are now so low that the sector is more insulated than in the past. Meanwhile the rooftop solar sector is becoming unstoppable.”

A media release announcing publication of the UNEP report said that if the positive investment trends of 2014 are to continue, “it is increasingly clear that major electricity market reforms will be needed of the sort that Germany is now attempting with its Energiewende [energy transition].”

The structural challenges to be overcome are not simple,” it added, “but are of the sort that have only arisen because of the very success of renewables and their over two trillion dollars of investment mobilised since 2004.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

In response to rising demand for electricity, pressure to keep prices affordable and a need to maintain energy security, the Turkish government plans to increase electricity generation from coal.

According to a report on ‘Subsidies to Coal and Renewable Energy in Turkey’ released on Mar. 24,

Turkey already spent more than 730 million dollars in subsidies to the coal industry in 2013.

This figure, says the report, does not even count subsidies under the Turkish government’s ‘New Investment Incentive Scheme’, which provides tax breaks and low-cost loans to coal projects, so the true figure is likely to be even higher.

The report, by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), says that the Turkish government is planning to triple generation from coal by 2030 despite the fact that renewable energy is already cheaper than coal when external costs, such as health and environmental damage caused by burning coal, are taken into account.

According to the report, the country has developed a strategy “focusing on developing domestic coal resources, such that growth in coal-fired power generation is expected to be highest of all Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.”

Nevertheless, this strategy “also acknowledges the importance of environmental protection and emissions reduction, and foresees a much larger role for renewable energy in the energy future.”

The report comes at a time when public and private institutions are under mounting pressure to stop investing in coal mining companies.

“Subsidies for coal lock in coal power for another generation when renewable sources of energy are less costly for society in economic, social and environmental terms,” said Sevil Acar, Assistant Professor at Istanbul Kemerburgaz University and one of the report’s authors.

The report says that when the costs of coal are compared with the costs of wind and solar energy, taking into account environmental and health costs, electricity from wind power is half the cost of electricity from coal, and solar power is also marginally cheaper than coal.

“This study provides further evidence to support the case for eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies once and for all,” said Peter Wooders, director of IISD’s Energy Programme. “As a G20 country that has already committed to phasing out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies, this is a call to action for Turkey.”

According to the report, just over half of Turkey’s subsidies are used to provide coal to low-income households and while these serve the important goal of improving energy access, they come at a high health cost and are no replacement for social security programmes.

The report recommends a gradual phase-out of these subsidies in favour of more efficient measures to support access to energy and support social welfare.

Meanwhile, notes the report, coal also remains a significant employer in many areas, and any moves away from coal use would need detailed planning to ensure that affected communities can benefit from compensation measures and additional job creation from new technologies.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Indian coal workers. India announced in November last year that it plans to double coal production to a whopping 1 billion tonnes per annum before the end of this decade, a feat that is going to be highly improbable to pull off. Photo credit: Jaipal Singh/EPA

By Chaitanya Kumar
NEW DELHI, Mar 18 2015 (IPS)

India’s Government under Narendra Modi is in overdrive mode to please businesses and investments in the country. The much aggrandised ‘Make in India’ campaign launched in September 2014 is a clarion call for spurring investments into manufacturing and services in India and all eyes have turned to the power sector which is expected to undergo dramatic shifts.

Piyush Goyal, India’s power minister, announced in November last year that he plans to double coal production in India to a whopping 1 billion tonnes per annum before the end of this decade, a feat that is going to be highly improbable to pull off.

In an effort to enhance production, the Indian government has started a process of auctioning coal blocks, which were de-allocated by the country’s Supreme Court as a result of the coal scam that hit the country in 2012 (and resulted in notional losses of 30 billion dollars to India’s exchequer).

With domestic miners already having shown an aggressive interest in bidding at the first auction last month, a total of 204 coal blocks are set to be auctioned over the next 12 months. The first 32 auctioned blocks have yielded more than 35 billion dollars, exceeding the nominal losses from the coal scam.“[Indian] Prime Minister Modi has made it clear that he does not intend to give into … pressure [to take further action on climate change and rethink its energy options] from any nation but he also cannot afford the ignominy of being singled out as a country that is blocking progressive climate action in Paris”

Coupled with the auctions is the disinvestment of Coal India Limited (CIL), the world’s largest coal mining company. A 10 percent stake sale in early February resulted in a mixed bag response. Another state owned firm, LIC India, lapped up 50 percent of the stocks alongside a couple of international investment funds and a few Indian firms. The move generated 3.6 billion dollars in revenues for the government.

The auctions and the disinvestment of CIL can provide short-term reprieve to India’s energy and fiscal deficit woes, but there are four reasons why investors and the government should be really wary of investing in coal for the long run (10-15 years). The following are the first two.

Unburnable carbon

The reality that a large proportion of coal and other fossil fuels should be left in the ground is rapidly becoming clear to big business and governments around the world. By signing on to a global agreement that pledges to limit the rise in the earth’s surface temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, India along with other major carbon emitters have effectively signalled the imminent decline in the use of fossil fuels in order to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

To achieve this much needed and agreed upon limit on temperature rise, 82 percent of known global coal reserves should remain unextracted. This roughly translates into 66 percent of known coal reserves in India and China that should be left in the ground, according to a study published in the reputed journal Nature.

These stranded assets, or unburnable carbon, is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientific body that informs climate policy around the world, also highlighted in its recent report on climate change mitigation.

This new reality is unravelling quicker than expected and gaining credence from the most unlikely of places. Even the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has faced consistent criticism in underplaying the role of renewable energy in favour of nuclear and fossil fuels, stated recently that “no more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2 degrees C goal”.

IEA’s Chief Economist Fatih Birol warned that “we need to change our way of consuming energy within the next three or four years,” because, otherwise, “in 2017, all of the emissions that allow us to stay under 2°C will be locked in.”

Coal is fast losing the rug under its feet. Nick Nuttall, the spokesman for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said of divestment: “We support divestment as it sends a signal to companies, especially coal companies, that the age of ‘burn what you like, when you like’ cannot continue.

This proposition will be contested fiercely by the Indian government as much as by any fossil fuel company, but as nations – under pressure – prepare to deliver a strong global climate agreement at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris in December, long-term investments in coal in this rapidly growing economy will stand on very thin ice.

Even U.S. President Barack Obama’s statements during his recent visit to India suggest diplomatic pressure on India to take further action on climate change and rethink its energy options for the immediate future.

Prime Minister Modi has made it clear that he does not intend to give into such pressure from any nation but he also cannot afford the ignominy of being singled out as a country that is blocking progressive climate action in Paris.

Thermal coal reaches retirement age – it’s time for renewable energy

A new report from Goldman Sachs starts with this gem of a sentence:  “Just as a worker celebrating their 65th birthday can settle into a more sedate lifestyle while they look back on past achievements, we argue that thermal coal has reached its retirement age.”

The latest data reveal that coal consumption is declining in many parts of the world, including across Europe as a whole, the United States and now, surprisingly, even China registered a small but historic decline in its coal consumption last year. The retirement of dirty coal plants in developed economies is set to cement this trend in the coming few years.

The most recent blow comes from the world’s largest sovereign fund, as Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), worth 850 billion dollars, announced that it had dumped 40 major coal mining companies from its portfolio on environmental and climate grounds.

Besides the climate concern, economics is increasingly in favour of alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar.

In 2014, we saw a precipitous drop in the cost of solar energy in India. Bidding prices came down as low as 6.5 rupees a unit, a 61 percent drop over the last three years, compared with the average unit price of conventional energy like coal at around 5.5 rupees a unit.

Coupled with dramatic drops in costs of solar equipment such as panels, alongside operational, capital and maintenance costs, the path is clearly open for solar to achieve grid parity by 2017.

Meanwhile, onshore wind has in fact become the cheapest way to generate electricity in the world, laying the claims of cheap coal to rest. A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental research organisation, has laid bare the facts.

According to the report, the levelised cost of energy or LCOE (that is, all costs considered except externalities like subsidies or environmental impacts) for solar and wind already makes them highly competitive with fossil fuel-based electricity.

The oft cited issues of high capital costs and intermittency notwithstanding, prices of small-scale residential rooftop solar systems also dropped in the range of 40-65 percent between 2008 and 2014 in Europe and the United States.

What does this mean for coal in India? If the above numbers are any measure of the future of the energy sector, heavy investments in coal beyond this decade would be economic suicide.

Coal plants once established have a lifetime of at least 30 years and given the market volatility for coal, owing to rising costs of mining and uncertain fuel supply agreements, greater prices for end consumers is inevitable.

Many pundits in India appreciate this reality and the government has given the right indicators on its pursuit of renewable energy. With a target of 165 GW, India has set an ambitious goal of adding 60 percent to its total current capacity from just solar and wind by 2022.

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Uncontrolled woodcutting in remote areas of Zimbabwe like Mwenezi district has left many treeless fields. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Feb 6 2015 (IPS)

There’s a buzz in Zimbabwe’s lush forests, home to many animal species, but it’s not bees, bugs or other wildlife. It’s the sound of a high-speed saw, slicing through the heart of these ancient stands to clear land for tobacco growing, to log wood for commercial export and to supply local area charcoal sellers.

This, despite Zimbabwe being obliged under the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to ensure environmental sustainability by the end of this year.

“The rate at which deforestation is occurring here will convert Zimbabwe into an outright desert in just 35 years if pragmatic solutions are not proffered urgently and also if people keep razing down trees for firewood without regulation,” Marylin Smith, an independent conservationist based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, and former staffer in the government of President Robert Mugabe, told IPS.“The rate at which deforestation is occurring here will convert Zimbabwe into an outright desert in just 35 years if pragmatic solutions are not proffered urgently” – Marylin Smith, independent conservationist based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Zimbabwe lost an annual average of 327,000 hectares of forests between 1990 and 2010.

Smith blamed Zimbabwe’s deforestation on the growing numbers of tobacco farmers who were cutting “millions of tonnes of firewood each year to treat the cash crop.”

According to the country’s Tobacco Industry Marketing Board, Zimbabwe currently has 88,167 tobacco growers, whom environmental activists say are the catalysts of looming desertification here.

“Curing tobacco using huge quantities of firewood and even increased domestic use of firewood in both rural and urban areas will leave Zimbabwe without forests and one has to imagine how the country would look like after the demise of the forests,” Thabilise Mlotshwa, an ecologist from Save the Environment Association, an environmental lobby group here, told IPS.

“But really, it is difficult to object to firewood use when this is the only energy source most rural people have despite the environment being the worst casualty,” Mlotshwa added.

Zimbabwe’s deforestation crisis is linked to several factors.

“There are thousands of timber merchants who have no mercy with our trees as they see ready cash in almost every tree and therefore don’t spare the trees in order to earn money,” Raymond Siziba, an agricultural extension officer based in Mvurwi, a district approximately 100 kilometres north of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, told IPS.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat), there were 66,250 timber merchants nationwide last year alone.

Deforestation is a complex issue. A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that during the decade from 1980 to 1990, the world’s tropical forests were reduced by an average of 15.4 million hectares per year (an 0.8 percent annual rate of deforestation).

The area of land cleared during the decade is equivalent to nearly three times the size of France.

Developing countries rely heavily on wood fuel, the major energy source for cooking and heating. In Africa, the statistics are striking: an estimated 90 percent of the entire continent’s population uses fuelwood for cooking, and in sub-Saharan Africa, firewood and brush supply approximately 52 percent of all energy sources.

Zimbabwe is not the only sub-Saharan country facing a crisis in its forests. A panel run by the United Nations and the African Union and led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki found that in Mozambique thousands more logs were exported to China than were legally reported.

Disappearing forest cover is a particular problem in Ghana, where non-timber forest products provide sustenance and income for 2.5 million people living in or near forest communities.

Between 1990 and 2005, Ghana lost over one-quarter of its total national forest cover. At the current rate of deforestation, the country’s forests could completely disappear in less than 25 years. Current attempts to address deforestation have stalled due to lack of collaboration between stakeholders and policy makers.

In west equatorial Africa, a study by Greenpeace has called logging the single biggest threat to the Congo Basin rainforest. At the moment, logging companies working mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are busy cutting down trees in over 50 million hectares of rainforest, or an area the size of France, according to its website.

An estimated 20 to 25 percent of annual deforestation is thought to be due to commercial logging. Another 15 to 20 percent is attributed to other activities such as cattle ranching, cash crop plantations and the construction of dams, roads, and mines.

However, deforestation is primarily caused by the activities of the general population. As the Zimbabwe economy plummets, indigenous timber merchants are on the rise, battling to eke a living, with environmentalists accusing them of fuelling deforestation.

For many rural dwellers, lack of electricity in most rural areas is creating unsustainable pressures on forests in Zimbabwe.

“Like several other remote parts of Zimbabwe, we have no electricity here and for years we have been depending on firewood, which is the main source of energy for rural dwellers even for the past generations, and you can just imagine the amount of deforestation remote areas continue to suffer,” 61-year-old Irene Chikono, a teacher from Mutoko, 143 kilometres east of Harare, told IPS.

Even Zimbabweans with access to electricity are at the mercy of erratic power supplies from the state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), which is failing to meet electricity demand owing to inadequate finances to import power.

“With increasing electricity outages here, I often resort to buying firewood from vendors at local market stalls, who get this from farms neighbouring the city,” 31-year-old Collina Hokonya, a single mother of three residing in Harare’s high density Mbare suburb, told IPS.

Government claims it is doing all it can to combat deforestation but, faced with this country’s faltering economy, indigenous timber merchants and villagers say it may be hard for them to refrain from tree-felling.

“We are into the timber business not by choice, but because of joblessness and we therefore want to make money in order to survive,” Mevion Javangwe, an indigenous timber merchant based in Harare, told IPS.

“A gradual return of people from cities to lead rural life as the economy worsens is adding pressure on rural forests as more and more people cut down trees for firewood,” Elson Moyo, a village head in Vesera village in Mwenezi, 144 kilometres south-west of Masvingo, told IPS.

“Politicians are plundering and looting the hardwood forest reserves since they own most sawmills, with their relatives fronting for them,” Owen Dliwayo, a civil society activist based in Chipinge, an eastern border town of Zimbabwe, told IPS.

“For all the forests that politicians plunder, they don’t pay a cent to council authorities and truly how do people get motivated to play a part in conserving hardwood forests?” Dliwayo asked.

“We will only manage to fight deforestation if government brings electricity to our doorsteps because without electricity we will keep cutting down trees for firewood,” said Chikono.

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris   

Wood market in Chitungwiza. Twenty percent of the urban households in Zimbabwe do not have access to electricity, and rely mainly on firewood for their energy needs. Credit: Tonderayi Mukeredzi/IPS

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi
HARARE, Jan 27 2015 (IPS)

Janet Mutoriti (30), a mother of three from St Mary’s suburb in Chitungwiza, 25 kilometres outside Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, frequently risks arrest for straying into the nearby urban forests to fetch wood for cooking.

Despite living in the city, Janet’s is among the 20 percent of the urban households which do not have access to electricity, and rely mainly on firewood for their energy needs.

Worldwide, energy access has become a key determinant in improving people’s lives, mainly in rural communities where basic needs are met with difficulty.

In Zimbabwe, access to modern energy is very low, casting doubts on the country’s efforts at sustainable development, which energy experts say is not possible without sustainable energy.

In an interim national energy efficiency audit report for Zimbabwe issued in December, the Sustainable African Energy Consortium (SAEC) revealed that of the country’s slightly more than three million households, 44 percent are electrified.“In rural Zimbabwe, the economic driver is agriculture, both dry land and irrigated. The need for energy to improve productivity in rural areas cannot be over-emphasised but current power generated is not sufficient to support all the energy-demanding activities in the country” – Chiedza Mazaiwana, Practical Action Southern Africa

They consumed a total of 2.7 million GWh in 2012 and 2.8 million GWh in 2013, representing 34 percent of total electrical energy sales by the Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Transmission Company.

According to SAEC, of the un-electrified households, 62% percent use wood as the main source of energy for cooking, especially in rural areas where 90 percent live without access to energy.

A significant chasm exists between urban and rural areas in their access to electricity. According to the 2012 National Energy Policy, 83 percent of households in urban areas have access to electricity compared with 13 percent in rural areas.

Rural communities meet 94 percent of their cooking energy requirements from traditional fuels, mainly firewood, while 20 percent of urban households use wood as the main cooking fuel. Coal, charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas are used by less than one percent.

Engineer Joshua Mashamba, chief executive of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) which is crusading the country’s rural electrification programme, told IPS that the rate of electrification of rural communities was a mere 10 percent.

“As of now, in the rural areas, there is energy poverty,” he said. “As the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), we have electrified 1,103 villages or group schemes and if we combine that with what other players have done, we are estimating that the rate of rural electrification is at 10 percent. It means that 90 percent remain un-electrified and do not have access to modern energy.”

Since the rural electrification programme started in the early 1980s, Mashamba says that 3,256 schools, 774 rural centres, 323 government extension offices, 266 chief’s homesteads and 98 business centres have also been electrified.

Zimbabwe Energy Council executive director Panganayi Sithole told IPS that modern energy services were crucial to human welfare, yet over 70 percent of the population remain trapped in energy poverty.

“The prevalence of energy of poverty in Zimbabwe cuts across both urban and rural areas. The situation is very dire in peri-urban areas due to deforestation and the non-availability of modern energy services,” said Sithole.

“Take Epworth [a poor suburb in Harare] for example. There are no forests to talk about and at the same time you cannot talk of the use of liquefied petrol gas (LPG) there due to costs and lack of knowledge. People there are using grass, plastics and animal dung to cook. It’s very sad,” he noted.

Sithole said there was a need to recognise energy poverty as a national challenge and priority, which all past and present ministers of energy have failed to do.

Zimbabwe currently faces a shortage of electrical energy owing to internal generation shortfalls and imports much its petroleum fuel and power at great cost to close the gap.

Demand continues to exceed supply, necessitating load shedding, and even those that have access to electricity regularly experience debilitating power outages, says Chiedza Mazaiwana, an energy project officer with Practical Action Southern Africa.

“In rural Zimbabwe, the economic driver is agriculture, both dry land and irrigated. The need for energy to improve productivity in rural areas cannot be over-emphasised but current power generated is not sufficient to support all the energy-demanding activities in the country. The percentage of people relying entirely on biomass for their energy is 70 percent,” she adds.

According to the World Bank, access to electricity in Southern Africa is around 28 percent – below the continental average of 31 percent. The bank says that inadequate electricity access poses a major constraint to the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in the region.

To end the dearth of power, Zimbabwe has joined the global effort to eliminate energy poverty by 2030 under the United Nation’s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative.

The country has abundant renewable energy sources, most of which are yet to be fully utilised, and energy experts say that exploiting the critical sources of energy is key in closing the existing supply and demand gap while also accelerating access to green energy.

By 2018, Zimbabwe hopes to increase renewable energy capacity by 300 MW.

Mashamba noted that REA has installed 402 mini-grid solar systems at rural schools and health centres, 437 mobile solar systems and 19 biogas digesters at public institutions as a way to promote modern forms of energy.

A coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) led by Zero Regional Environment Organisation and Practical Action Southern Africa is calling for a rapid increase in investment in energy access, with government leading the way but supported in equal measure by official development assistance and private investors.

Though the current output from independent power producers (IPPs) is still minimal, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) says that contribution from IPPs will be significant once the big thermal producers come on stream by 2018.

At the end of 2013, the country had 25 power generation licensees and some of them have already started implementing power projects that are benefitting the national grid.

Notwithstanding the obvious financial and technical hitches, REA remains optimistic that it will deliver universal access to modern energy by 2030.

“By 2018, we intend to provide rural public institutions with at least one form of modern energy services,” said Mashamba. “In doing this, we hope to extend the electricity grid network to institutions which are currently within a 20 km radius of the existing grid network. Once we have electrified all public institutions our focus will shift towards rural homesteads.”

For CSOs, achieving universal access to energy by 2030 will require recognising the full range of people’s energy needs, not just at household level but also enterprise and community service levels.

“Currently there is a lot of effort put in to increasing our generation capacity through projects such as Kariba South Extension and Hwange extension which is good and highly commended but for us to reach out to the rural population (most affected by energy poverty, according to our statistics, we should also increase efforts around implementing off grid clean energy solutions to make a balance in our energy mix,” says Joseph Hwani, project manager for energy with Practical Action Southern Africa.

Practical Action says that on current trends, 1.5 billion people globally will still lack electricity in 2030, of whom 650 million will be in Africa.

This is some fifteen years after the target date for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which cannot be met without sustainable, affordable, accessible and reliable energy services.

Edited by Phil Harris  

Kandeh Yumkella, U.N. Special Representative for Sustainable Energy, believes that Africa should focus on small and more decentralised renewable energy options that could quickly reach rural energy-poor citizens instead of waiting until funding is obtained for big renewable energy projects. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
ABU DHABI, Jan 22 2015 (IPS)

Diversification of Africa’s electricity sources by embarking on renewable energy solutions – such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydro power – is being heralded as a solution to the continent’s energy poverty.

But although a number of countries are already reaping benefits from investment in renewables, there is concern that many of the countries are yet to exploit those resources.

African ministers and delegates at the Abu Dhabi International Renewable Energy Conference in Abu Dhabi from January 15-17 noted that a mere handful of countries in the continent are tapping into renewable energy resource.“People don’t have to wait in darkness before the big projects come. We can have those solutions out today because the technologies are there. It is about markets and the spreading out of off-grid” – Kandeh Yumkella, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy

Some of the bottlenecks identified included lack of finance, lack of interest from investors and the desire by some to take on mega projects that could easily fail to attract private investors.

Davis Chirchir, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Energy, told IPS that for many sub-Saharan Africa countries, accessing financing for fossil fuel projects was much easier compared with renewable energy options. “It is a big problem even when the prices for renewable energy solutions like solar and wind are going down” said Chirchir, whose country is now seeing costs reducing as a result of investing in geothermal energy.

Kenya plans to generate up to three gigawatts (3GW) of power from geothermal energy alone from its Rift Valley area.

Chirchir said that despite the long-term benefits, many of the countries in the region lacked their own initial resources for investment in projects.

“While renewable projects are often cheaper, they tend to require up-front capital costs. So for many, we shall require more targeted financing if we are to kick off many from the ground,” said Chirchir.

“In Kenya, our investment in geothermal energy displaced some 65 percent of fossil fuels, and brought down the cost to the customer by about 30 percent,” he added.

Kandeh Yumkella, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy and CEO of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, decried the fact that despite the declining costs of generating energy from renewable energy sources, Africa was consuming only one-quarter of global average energy per capita.

“How do we help the majority of people in Africa that rely on charcoal and cow dung for their primary needs? How do we do that? This is where the context of off-grid really comes in,” he suggested.

According to Yumkella, Africa should focus on small and more decentralised renewable energy options that could quickly reach rural energy-poor citizens instead of waiting until funding is obtained for big renewable energy projects.

“Sometimes the project preparation costs before the investments come are about three to ten percent of project costs. For many African countries that is a lot of money. It takes a big time to get the big projects under way,” he noted.

For Yumkella, African governments urgently need to put in place policies that would support renewable energy power generation using private investments to construct off-grid power stations, especially in areas where it is hard to reconnect to the main grids.

“We can have millions of energy entrepreneurs spreading the off-grid solutions while we wait for the big projects to take off,” he explained. “People don’t have to wait in darkness before the big projects come. We can have those solutions out today because the technologies are there. It is about markets and the spreading out of off-grid.”

Furthermore, said Yumkella, off-grid solutions would support Africa’s social development agenda at the community level and “that can be done now because off-grids can be in the hands of the poor communities to increase their productivity and help their social development.  But we will need millions of entrepreneurs in Africa in order to make energy poverty history.”

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), even with available renewable energy potential, Africa still has the lowest rate of rural electrification compared with other continents.

Globally, over the last two decades, rural electrification has increased from 61 to 70 percent but there are large disparities in rural access rates – in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, that rate is just 18 percent compared with over 70 percent in developing Asia.

IRENA says that Africa needs to double its rate of expansion of rural electrification and change the way it approaches rural electrification for it to achieve the universal electricity access for all target by 2030.

“And in this expansion, it is estimated that about 60 percent of additional generation will come from stand-alone and mini-grid solutions, with most of it being renewables because they can tap into locally available energy resources,” said Rabia Ferroukhi, IRENA Deputy Director in charge of Knowledge, Technology and Financing.

Adnan Z. Amin, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), believes that all African countries can reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and leapfrog into a sustainable future. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

Meanwhile, African energy ministers and delegates at the Abu Dhabi renewable energy conference called on IRENA and countries with greater knowledge in renewable energy to help them in supporting the Africa Clean Energy Corridor initiative.

This initiative encourages the deployment of hydro, geothermal, biomass, wind and solar options from Cairo to Cape Town to increase capacity, stabilise the grid, and reduce fossil fuel dependency.

Ethiopia, one of the countries already investing in renewable energy, especially in wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power, is one of the proponents of financing for the Clean Energy Corridor.

The country plans to generate 800 megawatts of wind power, 1 gigawatt of geothermal power and is constructing a 6,000 MW hydroelectric plant, which will be the largest such facility in Africa costing about 4.8 billion dollars.

Ethiopia’s Water, Irrigation and Energy Minister, Alemayehu Tegenu, told IPS that, if implemented, the Africa Clean Energy Corridor would help to advance renewable energy solutions to the corridor.

Adnan Amin, the Director-General of IRENA, told IPS that the Africa Clean Energy Corridor has gathered strong political support and engagement from within Africa and at the level of the United Nations.

“We have to make sure that we have regional programmes that can support countries to move in the clean direction and this is the concept behind our African Clean Energy Corridor,” said Amin.

“We want to interconnect African markets, create a larger regulated market, because when you have big markets, you can have big projects that pass the technology forward.”

With smart planning and prudent investment, Amin believes that all African countries can reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and leapfrog into a sustainable future.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Anti-coal human chain crossing the Niesse river which separates Poland and Germany, August 2014. Credit: Courtesy of Greenpeace Poland

By Claudia Ciobanu and Silvia Giannelli
GRABICE, Poland / PROSCHIM, Germany, Aug 26 2014 (IPS)

“People have gathered here to tell their politicians that the way in which we used energy and our environment in the 19^th and 20^th centuries is now over,” says Radek Gawlik, one of Poland’s most experienced environmental activists. “The time for burning coal has passed and the sooner we understand this, the better it is for us.”

Gawlik was one of over 7,500 people who joined an 8-kilometre-long human chain at the weekend linking the German village of Kerkwitz with the Polish village of Grabice to oppose plans to expand lignite mining on both sides of the German-Polish border.“It's high time to plan the coal phase-out now and show the people in the region a future beyond the inevitable end of dirty fossil fuels" – Anike Peters, Greenpeace Germany

They were inhabitants of local villages whose houses would be destroyed if the plans go ahead, activists from Poland and Germany, and even visitors from other countries who wanted to lend a hand to the anti-coal cause. The human chain – which was organised by Greenpeace and other European environmental NGOs – passed through the Niesse river which marks the border between the two countries, and included people of all ages, from young children to local elders who brought along folding chairs.

At least 6,000 people in the German part of Lusatia region and another 3,000 across the border in south-western Poland stand to be relocated if the expansion plans in the two areas go ahead.

In Germany, it is Swedish state energy giant Vattenfall that plans to expand two of its lignite mines in the German states of Brandenburg and Saxony; state authorities have already approved the company’s plans. In Poland, state energy company PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna) plans an open-cast lignite mine from which it would extract almost two million tonnes of coal per year (more than from the German side).

On the German side

Germany has for a long time been perceived as an example in terms of its energy policy, not in the least because of its famous Energiewende, a strategy to decarbonise Germany’s economy by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 percent, reaching a 60 percent renewables share in the energy sector, and increasing energy efficiency by 50 percent, all by 2050.

Today, one-quarter of energy in Germany is produced from renewable sources, and the same for electricity, as a result of policies included in the Energiewende strategy.

Expanding coal mining as would happen in the Lusatia region contradicts Germany’s targets, argue environmentalists. “The expansion of lignite mines and the goals of the Energiewende to decarbonise Germany until 2050 do not fit together at all,” says Gregor Kessler from Greenpeace Germany.  “There have to be severe cuts in coal-burning if Germany wants to reach its own 2020 climate goal (reducing CO₂ emissions by 40 percent).

“Yet the government so far is afraid of taking the logical next step and announce a coal-phase-out plan,” Kessler continues. “So far both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats keep repeating that coal will still be needed for years and years to provide energy security. However even today a lot of the coal-generated energy is exported abroad as more and more energy comes from renewables.”

Proschim, a town of around 360 people, is one of the villages threatened by Vattenfall’s planned expansion. Already surrounded by lignite mines, this little community has one feature that makes its possible destruction even more controversial: nowadays it produces more electricity from renewable energy than its citizens use for themselves.

Wind farm in Proschim, Lusatia, Germany. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

But Vattenfall’s project to extend two existing open cast mines, namely Nochten and Welzow-Süd, would destroy Proschim along with its solar and wind farm and its biogas plant.

“It is such a paradox, we have so much renewable energy from wind, solar and biogas in Proschim. And this is the town they want to bulldoze,” says former Proschim mayor Erhard Lehmann.

The village is nevertheless split on the issue, with half of its citizens welcoming Vattenfall’s expansion project, including Volker Glaubitz, the deputy mayor of Proschim, and his wife Ingrid, who came from Haidemühl, a neighbouring village that was evacuated to make room for the Welzow-Süd open-cast mine. The place is now known as the “ghost-town”, due to the abandoned buildings that Vattenfall was not allowed to tear down because of property-related controversies.

Abandoned buildings in Haidemühl, Lusatia, Germany. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

Lignite undoubtedly played a major role in Lusatia’s economic development, creating jobs not only in the many open-cast mines spread over the territory, but also through the satellite activities connected to coal processing. Lehmann himself was employed as a mechanic and electrician for the excavators used in the mines. Ingrid Glaubitz was a machinist at ‘Schwarze Pumpe’, one of Vattenfall’s power plants and her son also works for Vattenfall.

“There must be renewable energy in the future, but right now it is too expensive and we need lignite as a bridge technology,” Volker Glaubitz told IPS. “The mines bring many jobs to the region: without the coal, Lusatia would be dead already.”

Johannes Kapelle, a 78-year-old farmer of Sorb origin and at the forefront of the battle against Proschim’s destruction, sees coal in a completely different way: “Coal is already vanishing, it something that belongs to the past.”

His house, right in front of the Glaubitz’s, is covered in solar panels, and from his garden he proudly shows the wind park that provides Proschim with an estimated annual production of 5 GWh.

Johannes Kapelle in his courtyard, with roof covered in solar panels, Proschim, Lusatia, Germany. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

According to Kapelle, lignite extraction has been threatening the Sorb culture, which is spiritually connected to the land, since the beginning of industrialisation over a hundred years ago. “When a Sorb has a house without a garden, and without farmland, without forests and lakes, then he’s not a true Sorb anymore, because he has no holy land.”

On the Polish side

Poland is Europe’s black sheep when it comes to climate, with 90 percent of electricity in Poland currently produced from coal and the country’s national energy strategy envisaging a core role for coal for decades to come. The Polish government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk has over the past years tried to block progress by the European Union in adopting more ambitious climate targets.

For Polish authorities, the over 100,000 jobs in coal mining in the country today are an argument to keep the sector going. Additionally, says the government, coal constitutes a local reserve that can ensure the country’s “energy security” (a hot topic in Europe, especially since the Ukrainian-Russian crisis).

Coal opponents, on the other hand, note that the development of renewables and energy efficiency creates jobs too (according to the United Nations, investments in improved energy efficiency in buildings alone could create up to 3.5 million jobs in the European Union and the United States). Environmentalists further argue that coal is not as cheap as its proponents claim: according to the Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies, in some years, subsidies for coal mining in Poland have reached as much as 2 percent of GDP.

“In Poland, the coal lobby is very strong,” says Gawlik. “I also have the impression that our politicians have not yet fully understood that renewables and energy efficiency have already become real alternatives and do not come with some mythically high costs.”

The future of coal in Europe

In Europe as a whole, coal has seen a minor resurgence over the past 2-3 years, despite the European Union having the stated goal to decarbonise by 2050 (out of all fossil fuels, lignite produces the most CO₂ per unit of energy produced).

Access to cheap coal exports from the United States, relatively high gas prices, plus a low carbon price on the EU’s internal emissions trading market (caused in turn by a decrease in industrial output following the economic crisis) led to a temporary hike in coal usage. Yet experts are certain that coal in Europe is dying a slow death.

“In the longer term the prospects for coal-fired power generation are negative,” according to a July report by the Economist Intelligence Unit. “Air-quality regulations (in the European Union) will force plant closures, and renewable energy will continue to surge, while in general European energy demand will be weak. The recent mini-boom in coal-burning will prove an aberration.”

“Additional coal mines would not only be catastrophic for people, nature and climate – it would also be highly tragic, as beyond 2030, when existing coal mines will be exhausted, renewable energies will have made coal redundant,” says Anike Peters, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Germany.

“It’s high time to plan the coal phase-out now and show the people in the region a future beyond the inevitable end of dirty fossil fuels.”

* Anja Krieger and Elena Roda contributed to this report in Germany

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Sub-Saharan Africa has large potential for hydropower generation, but is yet to exploit it. Pictured here is the Kariba Dam. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 21 2014 (IPS)

Pressure is building here for lawmakers to pass a bill that would funnel billions of dollars of U.S. investment into strengthening Africa’s electricity production and distribution capabilities, and could offer broad new support for off-grid opportunities.

With half of the U.S. Congress having already acted on the issue, supporters are now hoping that the Senate will follow suit before a major summit takes place here during the first week of August. That event is expected to include heads of state or representatives from as many as 50 African countries."We could see an energy revolution that looks similar to what happened with mobile phones – leapfrogging centralised systems altogether and moving towards transformative solutions.” -- Justin Guay

The summit, the first time that such an event has been organised in Washington, will focus in particular on investment opportunities. As such, many are hoping that the three-day event’s centrepiece will be President Barack Obama’s signing of a broad investment deal aimed at Africa’s power sector.

“The overwhelming majority of the African leaders are going to be coming to Washington emphasising trade and investment, and in that context this issue is very central to their many constituencies – touching on economic, political and social issues,” Ben Leo, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a think tank here, told IPS.

“Coming forward with something concrete that will lead to additional capital, tools or engagement will be noticed and welcomed. But lack thereof would also have a message for African leaders and others travelling to Washington.”

A U.S. Senate subcommittee did pass a bill, called the Energize Africa Act, late last month, but much remains to be done. The legislation now needs to be voted on by the full Senate, after which the final proposal would have to be brought into alignment with a similar bill voted through by the House of Representatives in May.

Meanwhile, the entire Congress is scheduled to go into recess for a month at the end of July. Still, backroom talks are reportedly well underway.

“There’s growing pressure and momentum in the Senate, as well as a growing appreciation of how doing this is both strategic and important,” Leo says. “Not having a bill to sign would certainly be a missed opportunity in terms of the optics and concreteness of action, either before or when everyone’s in Washington.”

Some 68 percent of the sub-Saharan population lacks access to electricity. Both the House and Senate bills would seek to assist African countries in expanding basic electricity access to some 50 million people.

“Our support for this bill is a direct response to what we hear from African leaders, citizens and global development experts,” Tom Hart, U.S. executive director of ONE, an advocacy group that focuses on eliminating poverty in Africa and has mounted a major campaign in favour of the Senate bill, said in a statement.

“[O]ne of the biggest challenges for overcoming extreme poverty is the inability for millions of people to access the basic electricity necessary to power health clinics, farms, schools, factories and businesses.”

Beyond the grid

The current legislative push comes a year after President Obama unveiled a new initiative called Power Africa, proposed during his June 2013 trip to the continent. Seen as the president’s signature development plan for the region, Power Africa aims to double energy access in sub-Saharan countries through a mix of public and private investment.

While Power Africa is ambitious, its long-term impact greatly depends on the legislation currently under debate.

For instance, while Power Africa directly affects just six countries, the bills before Congress take a continental approach. Likewise, as an executive-level project, the initiative’s policy priorities can only be cemented through full legislation.

Power Africa initially came under significant fire from environmental and some development groups for its reliance on fossil fuel (particularly natural gas) and centralised power projects. Many groups say that such a focus is ultimately counterproductive for poor and marginalised communities.

Yet last month, the United States announced a billion-dollar initiative to focus on off-grid energy projects across the continent. This approach could now be codified through the legislative discussions currently taking place in Congress.

“Congress is now looking to pass a bill that would be relatively historic in terms of its support for beyond-the-grid markets,” Justin Guay, Washington representative for the Sierra Club, a conservation and advocacy group, told IPS. “The [Senate] bill is the first legislation we’ve seen starting to drive investment to unlock that potential.”

To date, Guay says, most investment from the U.S. government and multilateral agencies has skewed in favour of fossil fuels and centralised power generation. For the first time, the new legislation could start to balance out this mix – a potential boon for the environment and local communities alike.

“If you look at the energy access problem in sub-Saharan Africa, it’s largely a rural issue. So this bill could stimulate distributed, clean-energy solutions that can get into the hands of poor populations today, rather than forcing them to wait decades in the dark for power,” Guay says.

“In this way, we could see an energy revolution that looks similar to what happened with mobile phones – leapfrogging centralised systems altogether and moving towards transformative solutions.”

The House’s companion bill includes fewer progressive provisions than the Senate version, but it also doesn’t include amendments that could deliberately doom the legislation. Still, it remains to be seen how conservatives in the House react to the Senate’s proposals.

Strengthened support

These new opportunities have broadened support for the Senate’s legislation. On Friday, for instance, the Global Off Grid Lighting Association, a Germany-based trade group, expressed its “strong support” for the Energize Africa Act.

The legislation is also being welcomed by African environmentalists.

“We believe this bill has emerged as a strong source of support for our efforts to address energy poverty,” Mithika Mwenda, secretary general of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers from earlier this month.

“We are particularly supportive of new efforts to expand loan guarantee authority at USAID” – the main U.S. foreign aid agency – “as well as the goal of ending kerosene based lighting. Both of these aspects are critical to ending energy poverty in poor rural areas.”

Meanwhile, both the House and Senate bills have enjoyed an unusual level of bipartisan support. Still, it’s not clear whether that will translate into the passage of a new law – particularly by the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, slated for Aug. 4-6.

“There’s not a lot of time left, so it’s is very difficult,” the Center for Global Development’s Leo says. “However, if it doesn’t pass by the summit, the summit will invariably create a lot of action shortly thereafter.”

Although most of Iceland already uses renewable energy for its heating and electricity, a handful of places are still reliant on oil. But, at least on Grimsey island in the north, this could change in the future.

Grimsey has a population of 90 and currently uses about 200,000 litres of oil annually for district heating and electricity. Located 40 km off the northern mainland, it would be difficult and expensive to provide these essential needs via a pipeline.

A number of alternative solutions have been suggested over the years and one of these involves the use of wind energy. One of the researchers involved in the project, Daniel Chade from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, described how the scheme would work.

“Initially, wind turbines could be placed on Grimsey, which would support diesel electricity generation. Subsequently, a hydrogen storage system could be added to increase efficiency of the system. At this stage of the project development, around 90 percent of energy should be produced from renewables,” he said.“In general, the wind-hydrogen system is also adaptable for other remote communities. For example, all northern parts of the globe are characterised by an excellent wind potential” – Daniel Chade, researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland

While Chade believes that it is not a good idea to stop using diesel generators completely because it would not be very cost effective, he said: “However, in the future, oil prices will probably rise and renewable technology costs will decrease. Then I believe application of a 100 percent renewable energy system without a diesel generator should be feasible.”

Can the technique be used elsewhere in the world? Yes, said Chade, adding: “In general, the wind-hydrogen system is also adaptable for other remote communities. For example, all northern parts of the globe are characterised by an excellent wind potential.” He noted that that in Alaska, for example, there are around 200 places where diesel generators are used and in Canada about 300 remote locations rely on diesel generators.

“In some of them,” Chade added, “energy prices are higher than on Grimsey so, from an economic perspective, application of wind turbines with hydrogen energy storage should also be feasible there.”

Batteries are often used to store excess energy, but these only have a storage capacity of a few days. Hydrogen, however, can store energy for weeks or months.

“Nowadays, most of the available storage technologies are suitable for a maximum of a few days storage. In the case of hydrogen it can be stored over months, which is advantageous for Grimsey due to the seasonal wind variations. For example, some of the hydrogen produced during winter months from excess electricity might be used during summer when the wind potential is much lower,” Chade told IPS.

The above scenario only deals with electricity production, not district heating. Hydrogen can, in fact, be used for district heating as well, but more research needs to be done on the heating needs of Grimsey islanders before this is developed further.

Woodchips, however, are an option for district heating in Grimsey, which Runar Isleifsson from the Icelandic Forestry Commission is investigating.

“We have investigated whether it is practical and technically feasible to use wood pellets or woodchips to heat residential and industrial premises in Grimsey,” he told IPS.

“One of the main provisos is to use waste heat from the diesel plants that produce electricity for the island. These provide around 40 percent of what is needed. According to our calculations, this should be feasible and pricewise is very competitive with heating using traditional electricity (produced using hydropower) which is not available on Grimsey,” Isleifsson explained.

“Woodchips appear to be more practical than wood pellets,” he added.

Asked whether he thought that the wind energy system could be used in conjunction with woodchips, Chade said: “I think that he [Isleifsson] has a good idea. However, I believe that the heat from diesel generators that he proposes using might be substituted by the heat which would be generated by a wind turbine/hydrogen system. In such a case, his idea could be implemented together with our system.”

Meanwhile, in the capital Reykjavik, engineers from the EFLA company, the National Energy Authority and Iceland Drilling have been looking into the use of heat pumps to heat buildings in “cold” areas elsewhere in Iceland.

They say that up to four times as much energy can be produced from a given heat source, even in what might normally be considered unfavourable conditions.

For instance, even if it is cold outside, “absolute zero” – the point where no heat energy remains in a substance – is -273 °C, so a temperature of 0 °C will still contain considerable energy. Coupled with the use of special liquids which will boil at 0 °C, energy can be amassed from the outside air and used for domestic heating.

The energy produced is more than that needed for operation of the heat pump.

Heat pumps are of course not a new invention, but they have not seen much use in Iceland and it is difficult to predict how much energy they will produce because conditions in Iceland vary from place to place.

Lake Thingvallavatn, Iceland. Credit: Lowana Veal/IPS

This is what mechanical engineer Heimir Hjartarson has tried to clarify. He and his colleagues have looked at different places where heat pumps could be used.

“We at EFLA have collaborated in pilot projects where a water-to-water heat-pump system has been installed in a summerhouse close by Lake Thingvallavatn and also an air-to-water heat pump on the Snaefellsnes peninsula in West Iceland. The findings from these projects were that the electric energy for heating could be reduced to nearly 25 percent of what it was before installation,” Hjartarson explained.

A heat pump is now used to heat the swimming pool, school and sports complex in the town of Kirkjubaejarklaustur in South Iceland. These had been heated using waste heat from a waste incinerator, but the incinerator was closed down in December 2012 due to excess levels of dioxin and other pollutants. Use of the heat pumps has cut the cost of heating the pool with hydropower-produced electricity by two-thirds.

Gudmundur Ingi Ingason, Chair of the District Council for the Kirkjubaejarklaustur area, says that the heat pumps have worked very well. “We had already started using two heat pumps in the community centre, which were very effective, so we decided to buy some for the swimming pool as well after the incinerator was closed down. These are air-to-water heat pumps which take air from the atmosphere to heat the pool – like a fridge, but in reverse,” he explains.

According to Hjartarson, heat pumps are actually very suitable for heating swimming pools when no geothermal energy is available, because the heat obtained from each kilowatt is multiplied. “We have been looking into a system in which you only need to heat up water by about 2 °C [before it is pumped out into the pool again], which is very suitable for heat pump systems,” he concluded.

Ibrahim Sobeh and his son Mahmud with the device they built for domestic fuel production. Credit: Khaled Alashqar/IPS.

By Khaled Alashqar
GAZA CITY , May 7 2014 (IPS)

On the roof of a modest house amidst the alleys of Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, Ibrahim Sobeh and his sons spent more than 200 days working on a primitive device that converts waste plastic into fuel.

“The idea came when I watched smoke emissions from a fireplace I made in my house,” Sobeh tells IPS. “I thought how to exploit these fumes and vapours. That prompted me to search online to find there were already attempts in America to exploit fumes emitted by burning hay to produce fuel, and this was the start.”In harsh conditions where survival is a struggle, not many are thinking of the environment, or even of long-term damage to their health.

Fifty-six-year-old Sobeh, who got a diploma in electricity from the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) Institute in Gaza 30 years ago, tells IPS how he faced considerable difficulties because of lack of raw materials. And, he had to borrow money from a friend.

“Fuel in Gaza is extremely expensive and it is not available on a regular basis as a result of the blockade imposed on Gaza,” says Sobeh. “This is precisely what prompted me to look for a way to produce fuel domestically, which finally succeeded. But the project requires substantial financial support for its development.”

The device exposes plastic waste composed of oil molecules to high temperature in an Oxygen-free airtight box leading to degradation of the constituent particles of plastic into vapours. These are then passed through metal channels where the fumes are cooled. This results in liquid fuel somewhere between gasoline, diesel and kerosene.

“We produce one litre of fuel from 1.5 kg of plastic waste,” son Mahmud Sobeh tells IPS. “Diesel-run electrical and mechanical machines were successfully run on this fuel output. We have sent samples to the laboratories of the Islamic University of Gaza for scientific examination.”

These are desperate measures, and energy expensive in breaking down the plastic. But then Gazans are in a desperate situation.

The fuel crisis in Gaza has been ongoing for eight years now as Israel controls the amount of fuel entering Gaza through the Abu Salim crossing between Gaza and Israel. Gaza’s only power plant also runs on scarce diesel. Blackouts that last hours are a daily feature.

A litre of Israeli gasoline costs seven shekels (two dollars). A litre of fuel smuggled from Egypt cost half as much before the Egyptian army demolished the tunnels between North Sinai and the southern town Rafah after the dismissal of former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi. This exacerbated the electricity and fuel crisis in Gaza.

Dr. Sameer Afifi, director of the centre for environmental studies and scientific laboratories at the Islamic University of Gaza tells IPS that the Sobehs’ project “was conducted under primitive conditions and the quality may therefore be not quite good. But still it is promising.”

What is certain is that production of fuel in such manner would be environmentally damaging, and could be harmful to health. Former environment minister Yusef Abu Safieh tells IPS that production of such fuel must be subject to an in-depth scientific studies.

The incomplete combustion of plastic may result in release of other hydrocarbons that are hazardous, some of them carcinogenic. “Any material that is not fully combusted results in production of fumes and dangerous substances,” Abu Safieh tells IPS.

But citizens in Gaza still look at such attempts with hope. “Ordinary fuel is not readily available due to high prices, and this makes us look for locally produced fuel that helps us to overcome the energy crisis and relieve us of an economic burden,” Shadi Abu Samra, 35, from Al-Shati refugee camp tells IPS.

The Sobeh experiment is now driving others to look at such measures to produce fuel. In harsh conditions where survival is a struggle, not many are thinking of the environment, or even of long-term damage to their health.

Solar panels provide electricity to a rural health centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Electriciens sans Frontières.

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Mar 18 2014 (IPS)

Hervé Gouyet knows firsthand the difference electricity can make in the lives of both isolated rural communities and those who have just suffered a natural disaster.

“We’re not talking about just a light bulb,” he says. “We’re talking about people being able to work in the evenings, students being able to study, women getting better healthcare and also having the security to move about.”“Energy is now seen as an indispensable element to achieving all the other development objectives."

Gouyet is the president of the French non-governmental organisation Electriciens sans Frontières (Electricians Without Borders), whose self-imposed mission is to provide electricity to the world’s poor via renewable energy systems.

Working with a thousand volunteers, the group has installed solar panels in villages around the world, from Nepal to Peru. Its members stress that energy plays a key role in development, even if this was not included in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the internationally agreed objectives that should come to fruition in 2015.

“At first, energy was not seen as a direct goal, but that viewpoint has changed over the years, especially with the concerns about climate change,” said Gouyet, who also works as an electrical engineer for French utility giant EDF (the state-owned company contributes financial support through a foundation, along with other donors).

“Energy is now seen as an indispensable element to achieving all the other development objectives,” Gouyet told IPS. These include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, improving maternal health and ensuring environmental sustainability.

At a conference in Paris, international experts stressed the role of renewable energy as a “remedy to economic crises” and as a means to “advance society”. Organised by the France-based Syndicat des énergies renouvelables (renewable energies union), the meeting was heavy on technical terms, with “megawatts” and “gigawatts” being tossed around.

For Electriciens sans Frontières, which was present at the conference, the stated goals are quite prosaic, however: providing electricity so that individuals can lead better lives, including after catastrophes.

“Access to energy offers a widespread solution to economic, environmental and human development problems,” the NGO says. “By lighting school classrooms and hospital operating rooms and by providing access to clean water, electricity contributes to improving the living conditions of the poor.”

In Haiti, the organisation has installed 600 street lamps in the camps where thousands still live after the 2010 earthquake. During the day, solar panels capture the sun’s energy, which is then stored in batteries and subsequently used during the night to power the street lamps.

The lighting affords some security to women and girls in an environment where sexual assault is an ever-present risk. Two hundred additional street lamps will be put up this year, at the request of local officials.

Electriciens sans Frontières is also helping to provide electricity to schools, again through photovoltaic systems, working with the World Bank and other institutions to restore Haiti’s educational system. The group was already present in the country before the earthquake and was able to respond quickly, Gouyet said.

The focus on renewable energy to improve the lives of people living in poverty is clearly a goal for many governments who have signed onto the U.N. Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative. But heightened global cooperation is needed, said Adnan Amin, director general of the four-year-old International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

“If we continue with the current system, we will not achieve energy access and we will not achieve sustainability,” he said at the Paris conference. “We need to find sustainable ways of providing energy to those people in the world who do not have access to modern energy services.”

According to U.N. figures, 1.3 billion people remain without access to electricity, mostly in developing countries; and natural disasters can exacerbate the already bad conditions.

In the Philippines, following the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in November, Electriciens sans Frontières has cooperated with other NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders to provide electricity to medical centres and also to makeshift schools. Because of the scale of the destruction, they’ve used both generator sets and solar-powered lamps.

The first team of volunteers installed lighting in the healthcare tents set up around the Guiuan hospital, which was destroyed by the typhoon. They also wired the operating and delivery rooms, and the maternity ward welcomed its first four babies that same evening, volunteers told IPS.

Four months after the disaster, “a growing sense of recovery is notable in the reopening of health centres, clean water flowing again through community taps, children back to learning in temporary schools,” according UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Fund.

Still, it will be a long road to full recovery as the typhoon hit several of the country’s poorest areas, where even before the disaster “some 40 per cent of children were living in poverty,” said Abdul Alim, UNICEF’s acting representative in the Philippines.

In a report released this week, UNICEF outlines the work it and NGOs have done in providing 930,000 people with access to safe water and in delivering hygiene supplies to more than 231,000 children across schools and “child-friendly spaces”.

Meanwhile, Filipino officials joined Electriciens sans Frontières in Paris last week to discuss the impact of the measures taken so far. “I think re-installing electricity is one of the most important things after a calamity because it’s that which allows all the other work to be done,” said Rapunzel Acop, the Philippines’ vice-consul to France.

“Without electricity, I don’t know how people would communicate to get the word out. Without electricity, the water pumps don’t work and people can’t cook food if they have an electric stove,” she told IPS. “We’ve seen this after the typhoon.”

After two decades of aggressively privatising its public services, the Philippines is beginning to realise the cost of mindless market reforms.

Recent months have seen an explosion of public outrage over a proposed increase in electricity prices, which threatens the country’s economic trajectory and is undermining the interest of millions of ordinary consumers, who have long suffered from exorbitant costs of public services.

The Philippines already has among the world’s most expensive electricity rates, which in 2011, some estimates suggest, even surpassed those of post-Fukushima Japan – making electricity prices in the Philippines the most expensive in Asia.A growing number of Filipino citizens have come to realise the consequences of hasty privatisation of public services.

For many economists, this served as a major disincentive against desperately needed inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). No wonder, despite attaining “investment grade” status from the world’s leading credit rating agencies in 2013, the Philippines is still struggling to attract high-quality investments.

Things came to a head when the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the country’s leading electricity distributor, announced a further increase in electricity costs in late 2013. Meralco tried to justify the proposed increase – the highest single price hike in the company’s history – on the grounds that it had to undertake emergency purchases in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) to cover for a maintenance shutdown in its principal source of energy, the Malampaya natural gas pipeline.

But once the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved the proposed price hike, there was an immediate explosion of public outcry, with leading legislators and public intellectuals raising suspicions of oligarchic collusion.

“I find it difficult to believe that at the very time that the Malampaya [pipeline] would go into a month-long hibernation for maintenance, about eight power suppliers to Meralco would [also] go offline unexpectedly, forcing Meralco to go to WESM, which was supplied by power companies that were controlled by the same interests that went offline,” legislator Walden Bello told IPS.

“With Meralco’s sudden demand, the electricity price per kilowatt hour tripled, resulting in these controlling interests making a killing. The only question unresolved for me is to what extent Meralco was involved in the collusion by its power suppliers.”

Given the quasi-monopolistic nature of the Philippine energy market, with overlapping cross-ownership between distributors and producers, critics claimed that Merlaco and other major producers allegedly “staged” an emergency shutdown to justify the purchase of “artificially high” emergency supply in the spot-market.

Given the limited capacity of the ERC, and separate ongoing corruption investigations against ERC chairperson Zenaida Ducut, an increasing number of people raised the possibility of regulatory capture.

Under growing public pressure, the Philippine legislature, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched parallel investigations into the matter, while the Supreme Court passed a temporary restraining order on the proposed price hike by Meralco.

Like many other developing countries, the Philippines underwent a series of sweeping market reforms in the 1990s. As far as the electricity sector was concerned, the process of market transition culminated in the passage of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) in 2001.

It was a landmark piece of legislation, replacing the Rate of Return on Base (RORB) system with a Performance-Based Regulation (PBR) regime. Its advocates promised, among other things, lower power costs, efficient transmission of electricity, and expanded capacity for energy production.

But in reality, a privatised electricity sector meant its domination by influential business families, who transformed the electricity sector into one of the country’s most profitable businesses.

The cost of the bungled privatisation process was borne by the consumers and the economy. The manufacturing sector – relying on affordable and reliable sources of energy, and crucial to the provision of large-scale employment – suffered from increasingly exorbitant power costs, making the Philippines highly reliant on services and domestic consumption as its engines of growth.

The Ibon Foundation, a research and development NGO in the Philippines, says electricity costs rose more than 112 percent in the 2001-2011 period.

Three years into office, President Benigno Aquino III managed to bring about an unprecedented period of political stability and economic revival to the country. But his good governance initiatives ultimately fell short of overhauling the country’s power infrastructure. There was also minimal improvement in the creaking regulatory agencies.

“In not calling Meralco and the power generators to task, the President lost an opportunity to show he understands the plight of consumers that are now suffering power rates that are among the highest in Asia,” Bello told IPS, reflecting the growing demand among leading legislators and the general public for a more decisive intervention by the government.

“The administration will be remembered as being soft on big business if it continues its hands-off attitude in this matter.”

Although President Benigno Aquino initially refused to directly intervene in the matter, he eventually agreed to review the 2001 law, signaling his willingness to introduce crucial reforms in the energy sector.

“We are open [to review]…When it comes to court action or any legal remedy that is available to consumers or to anybody who has the legal standing to do so, they are free to do so,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

It seems that a growing number of Filipino citizens have come to realise the consequences of hasty privatisation of public services. As a result, more people are calling for decisive state participation in the economy and empowerment of regulatory agencies to ensure energy security and protection of consumer welfare.

A clear plastic water bottle stuck through the ceiling of the iron roof illuminates a room. Courtesy: The Daylight Project

By Amy Fallon
KAMPALA
, Jul 10 2013 (IPS)

As he sits in the family lounge in Kamwokya, an informal settlement in Kampala, with the afternoon sunshine streaming through the door, Joseph Senkungu remembers a time when life, and his home, was very dark.

“I like the weather, it is always sunny. We have a lot of sunshine,” says the 19-year-old part-time songwriter and musician, and part-time mechanics student.

“But it was dark in there,” he tells IPS. He gestures towards the small bedroom behind the lounge that he shares with his grandmother Kataita, 65, and father Semakula, 46. Now, a clear plastic water bottle stuck through the ceiling of the iron roof illuminates the room.

“We did not get too much light in here,” explains Senkungu. “It was so dark, you may have stepped on a snake or something else dangerous.”“Electricity is not affordable to us because we are poor.” -- Alison Odong, a member of the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda

They have power in the living room of their house. But most of the money the family earned went towards their electricity bill, which used to cost about 19 dollars a month, until it got too expensive. But theirs is not a unique situation. According to the World Bank, only nine percent of Uganda’s 34.5 million people have access to electricity. And in 2012, the Ugandan Electricity Regulatory Authority approved an average 47 percent increase in rates.

“It wasn’t good. We used to buy torches. We used candles,” says Senkungu.

“They are too expensive these days. They are 350 shillings (15 cents) each. You may buy two in one day.”

His father is a part-time teacher who earns a mere 31 dollars a month. The family also relies on the matriarch, Senkungu’s grandmother, who sells tomatoes and onions in Kamwokya. But Senkungu says this brings in only about five dollars a month.

The family become used to fumbling around in the dark bedroom during daytime, for instance when Senkungu’s grandmother needed “balance” (change) to give a customer. They just got on with things.

That is until his grandmother heard from a neighbour about the Daylight Project, a community innovation scheme and the brainchild of Jennifer King, a Canadian living in Kampala. The project uses plastic water bottles – something that has become an environmental nuisance in Uganda – to directly improve the daily living conditions of people in informal settlements through simple solar technology.

Residents are asked to contribute the water bottles as a way to reduce waste in their area and buy in to the project.

After residents collect 1.5 litre transparent plastic bottles, Jik, a household bleach used to wash clothes, is poured into the bottles to purify the water. A hole is then cut in an iron sheet, and the bottle inserted. Silicone purchased from local hardware shops is used to keep the bulb in place.

The lights are assembled for just under one dollar, with the cost borne by the Daylight Project.

The bulbs take about 30 to 45 minutes to build, and another half hour to install. The silicone takes about six hours to dry fully. If properly made and installed, the bulbs emit up to 60 watts of light, generated from the sun, and last between five and seven years, according to the Daylight Project.

This has been proven, the project says, by the same scheme run on a much larger scale by MyShelter Foundation in the Philippines – where King got the idea from.

“What ends up happening is the plastic bottle cracks from exposure to the sun and the water then evaporates,” says King, who co-applied for funding from a United States organisation, the Congressional Hunger Center, after seeing a story on how the project was working in the Philippines.

“But we’ve have had lights in for a year-and-a-half now, and they are as sound as the day we installed them,” she tells IPS.

In the past four months the Daylight Project has constructed more than 250 lights and installed over 100. More than 500 people have benefitted from this.

These plastic bottle lights are working in six Kampala parishes – Katwe, Makindye, Kamwokya, Namuwongo, Kisenyi III and Ndeeba. And in Nagalama town, just outside Kampala, the project has lit up their first school.

The Daylight Project asks the community to select members who would benefit most from having the lights installed. In every case it has turned out to be a grandmother caring for many children.

“The reaction we get when the lights have been installed is extremely positive,” says King.

“For many, they don’t believe the bottles will produce such a bright light. I didn’t believe it until the first time I saw it either. When we complete the installations and people go inside for the first time, they are taken back by how bright it is.”

She adds: “We considered renaming the project the ‘The Banange Project’ (banange means “wow” in the local Luganda language), because that was everyone’s first reaction.”

Alison Odong, a member of the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda (NSDFU), who lives in Kampala’s Kamwoyka slum, says she is delighted with the project’s work.

“Electricity is not affordable to us because we are poor,” she tells IPS.

“We are happy with these lights because they’re easy to make, you only need to have a few materials and it uses natural light.”

The Daylight Project, which receives funding from a private donor in Australia, has also trained 350 people to install their own water bottle bulbs.

“We are training it to do it themselves,” says Tom Luba, the project’s assistant manager. “Our aim is not to do for them.”

Today, daily life is a bit brighter for Senkungu and his family. “I was really so surprised seeing these plastic bottles can make lights,” he says.

“All of us are happy. It has helped with so many things. Like right now, children may be playing outside and I want to read my books, or go into the bedroom and write my songs. There is light.”

An electricity pylon in Somaliland being repaired by Edwin Mireri. Somaliland’s first Electricity Energy Act will be launched this year and it will be the country’s first legal and regulatory framework aimed at managing energy production and distribution. Credit: IPS

By Jared Metzker
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

During an eight-day trip to Africa, President Barack Obama unveiled an ambitious plan to improve access to electricity across the continent, a move the White House says is designed to lift Sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty and help the region develop a stable middle class.

While the initiative may appear to be a generous increase in U.S. government aid to the continent, analysts suggest that it is perhaps more noteworthy as a change in the paradigm of how the United States assists developing nations.

The plan, dubbed Power Africa, will be aimed at doubling access to electricity in the region, where some 85 percent of the rural population continues to lack access to power. The hope is that vastly increasing this infrastructure will in turn strengthen African economies.

“The initiative seeks to address a major, major issue,” John Campbell, a senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank here, told IPS. “The absence of electrical power, among other things, makes it difficult to establish the kind of manufacturing that generates employment.”

Power Africa was announced on the heels of an address given by President Obama at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa. The president, who has been criticised for actions that fail to live up to his impressive speeches and for largely ignoring Africa during his first term, called on the United States to “up [its] game when it comes to Africa”.

Obama referenced Nelson Mandela’s experience in captivity as analogous to Africa’s continued suffering with poverty and underdevelopment.

“(J)ust as freedom cannot exist when people are imprisoned for their political views,” he stated, “true opportunity cannot exist when people are imprisoned by sickness, or hunger, or darkness.”

The president also asserted that development assistance to the region would be in the United States’ own interests, saying an enlarged middle class there would translate into “an enormous market for [U.S.] goods”.

Assistance as insurance

Establishing reliable sources of electricity, the Obama administration believes, will be a key part of the effort to bolster that middle class.

An estimate endorsed by the administration states that it would take around 300 billion dollars to grant all Sub-Saharan Africans access to electricity by 2030. With Power Africa, the U.S. ensures the region will receive seven billion dollars over the next five years.

That sum will be split among six countries (Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Tanzania and Nigeria). It will be used to exploit the region’s large, newly discovered reserves of oil and gas, as well as its potential to develop renewable energy from geothermal, hydro, wind and solar sources.

But, as Campbell points out, the way the United States will raise the seven billion dollars represents a shift in how it provides aid to Africa, focusing more on private trade and investment rather than on direct government aid.

“The old model would have been a government aid agency providing U.S. taxpayer money to fund development projects,” he says. “Here we will have the government partnering with private sources of money by guaranteeing against losses.”

Essentially, Campbell explains, the United States will marshal seven billion dollars’ worth of both money and material from private investors, who will then provide much of this by exporting manufactured goods intended to improve African infrastructure. These investors will be protected from losses by guarantees from Washington, which will play a role similar to that of an insurance provider.

Five billion dollars of support will be provided by the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) to U.S. exporters, while another 1.5 billion dollars in financing and insurance will come from government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Only a small portion of the seven billion dollars will come in the form of government aid. One billion dollars will come from the publicly-funded Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC), while the country’s main foreign assistance arm, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will provide just 285 million dollars.

“At the end of the day, if it all works out well, the U.S. government will actually make money,” Campbell says.

He also notes that the new model will mean insured profits and new jobs for U.S. manufacturers assigned with exporting needed products.

Campbell is concerned, however, that the new plan could fall short of its goals without additional U.S. government funding. But given the budget-conscious attitude prevailing in the U.S. Congress, he suggests this funding could be unobtainable.

China question

Some have speculated that the revamped assistance to Africa comes as a response to Chinese movement into the continent. China has, over recent years, invested massive amounts of its reserve funds into bolstering African infrastructure, and thus making inroads for future commercial and political relations.

Yet Campbell believes this speculation reflects an outmoded Cold War-era mentality and is an incorrect interpretation of what motivates the United States. He points out that Obama on Sunday welcomed investment in Africa by states other than the U.S. – including China.

“Governments and businesses from around the world,” Obama stated, “are sizing up the continent, and they’re making decisions themselves about where to invest [and] that’s a good thing. We want all countries – China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Europe, America – we want everybody paying attention to what’s going on here, because it speaks to your progress.”

Water catchment in Antigua, where water is one of the most scarce resources. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Apr 30 2013 (IPS)

In drought-plagued Antigua, where water and energy top the list of most precious resources, one campaign is encouraging islanders to conserve both of these commodities.

The campaign, Green Antigua, of the state-owned Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) has caught the attention of Brian Cooper, a British scientist who moved here in 1986.

“I’m very glad to see that the government is getting more serious,” Cooper told IPS, of APUA’s “very concrete programme”, through which people can produce their own power, thereby reducing reliance on the company.

“I don’t think it’s such that they can actually sell back to the company at this stage but at least it’s a start,” Cooper said. Residents of Antigua are beset by frequent power outages, and Cooper added that residents could also take very simple steps to conserve energy.

He suggested that people learn what household appliances consume the most energy, then try to cut back on using them.

“Refrigerators, hot water heaters and air conditioning units are big energy users,” he pointed out. “If you must have hot water for showering, install solar water heating so you can cut down on the amount of energy you are using.”Residents could take very simple steps to conserve energy.

Cooper did admit that installing a solar water heating system is expensive and that “it does take a few years to write off the savings”.

As for conserving water, APUA, through the campaign, encourages residents to reduce water use and waste in their kitchens, bathrooms and outdoors.

Steps residents can take include finding and repairing leaks in faucets and toilets, not using running water to thaw frozen foods, installing low-volume toilet units that use less than half the water of older models, and taking shorter showers.

Another tip is never to pour water down the drain when it can be used elsewhere, such as to water a plant or garden or to clean one’s home.

APUA also wants residents to adopt habits that save energy, such as ironing only once a week, installing energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs or LED bulbs, and not overcharging cell phones.

Creating a sustainable future

The price of crude oil has consistently remained above 100 U.S. dollars per barrel since the middle of 2012, according to the latest available information from the International Energy Agency.

“The facts could not be more overwhelming,” Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, told IPS, adding that his office was spearheading efforts for Antigua and Barbuda to transition towards a more sustainable energy future.

“Every day, we learn of new information pointing to the adverse effects of fossil fuels on the earth’s climate and environment,” he said, emphasising that small countries are the ones most vulnerable to these effects.

Spencer said while Antigua and Barbuda’s contribution to global climate change is miniscule, “we nevertheless have certain principles to advance”.

Antigua and Barbuda, he noted, uses a large amount of energy because of its relatively high living standards. High consumption, however, “presents opportunities for us to reduce our demand for energy through improved management” without sacrificing growth and development, he said.

In fact, it is time to adapt policies, measures and patterns of energy use that will enhance competitiveness and efficiency in socioeconomic development, Spencer said.

In 2001, the government of Antigua and Barbuda endorsed a national energy policy, providing a broad framework for action on energy related matters.

The policy identified priorities including energy cost reduction, diversification of energy sources, electricity reliability improvement and stimulation of new economic opportunities, and Spencer said that the cabinet had approved “a comprehensive list of components required for installation of various renewable energy technologies, particularly for wind and solar applications”.

Going public

The government also successfully installed a 6-kilowatt solar photovoltaic power unit at the Shirley Heights Lookout near the historic Nelsons Dockyard National Park, with assistance from the United States government, the Organisation of American States, the European Union and the German government.

Valerie Hodge, general manager at the Shirley Heights Lookout, noted that the project constituted an important asset for the location, which was not connected to the existing APUA grid and was totally dependent on costly generator power to supply electricity.

Spencer said he believed that “the results so far have exceeded expectations”. In addition to significantly reducing the use of the generator, the project had reduced environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and spurred productivity.

“The solar power unit also serves as a demonstration of the use of these technologies within an environmentally sensitive and historic site,” Spencer added.

The prime minister said the government has identified a number of other demonstration sites, including the VC Bird International Airport and the government office complex, for displaying renewable energy technologies.

Construction of the Santo Antônio hydroelectric dam in the Amazon region, one of the mega power projects that feed Brazil's power hungry industries. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO , Feb 13 2013 (IPS)

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, whose political career was fuelled by her stellar performance in the energy sector, is now faced with an ironic challenge: how to bring down the unusually high price of electricity predominantly generated by hydropower – the cheapest source – in this South American country of 196.6 million people.

Conditions today are unfavourable. The cost of power generation shot up due to the lack of rain throughout 2012, which meant the country had to resort in the last quarter of the year to the oil power plants that operate as backup for the hydroelectric stations during times of drought.

Despite this setback, the government kept its promise and lowered the price of electricity, one of the world’s highest. On Jan. 23, Rousseff announced an 18 percent reduction for households and a 32 percent reduction for industrial clients.

“The government wants to repeal the law of supply and demand by decree, with the absurd strategy of reducing utility rates and stimulating consumption in the middle of a power shortage,” economist Adriano Pires, head of the Brazilian Infrastructure Centre, told IPS.

Rates will have to go up again soon when the thermoelectric power plants “start collecting their bills” for operating overtime, as the scarce rainfall that is expected over the remaining summer months fails to fill the reservoirs, Pires added.

According to Pires, the high cost of energy in Brazil is caused by a failure to stimulate supply and competition in the sector, and by “monopolistic practices” and high taxes.

Roberto D’Araujo, director of the Ilumina Institute for the Strategic Development of the Energy Sector, also criticised the government’s strategy, although for different reasons. He told IPS that the government “is dismantling Brazil’s power system by using public companies” to meet the demands of industry in the southern state of São Paulo.

D’Araujo estimates that complying with the government’s measures will cost Furnas, a state-owned power company where he headed the Department of Energy Studies, 60 percent of its revenue. And he added that it would not be one of the hardest-hit companies.

The power companies run by the state operate either nationwide, like Furnas, or at a regional level. They all have a minority interest owned by private shareholders, and most are traded on the stock exchange.

The reduction in electricity bills will be made possible through subsidies and state companies that operate old hydroelectric plants under concessions whose terms will expire between 2015 and 2017. The government offered to extend these contracts in exchange for compensation and rate cuts of more than 90 percent in some cases.

Some of these companies, located in states governed by opposition parties, rejected the measure. But since they are controlled by the central government they had no choice but to comply and watch their stock prices plummet along with their investment capacity.

The situation in Furnas, which supplies 10 percent of Brazil’s electricity, is getting more complex. The company has 1,700 employees due to retire this year, and it will also have to let many other people go in order to absorb the rate reduction.

This will unfortunately deprive the company of “intelligence and experienced staff” said D’Araujo, who is a defender of energy as a public service within the context of the “natural monopoly” held by the hydroelectric power sector in Brazil.

According to D’Araujo, electricity prices “have doubled since 1995”, with the sector’s first privatisations and the implementation of the “market model”.

The government was unmoved by social protests and it was not until the industrial sector started demanding cheaper energy to regain competitiveness and overcome what analysts refer to as the country’s “de-industrialisation” that it lowered prices.

Before the January rate cut, industries complained that one megawatt/hour cost them 165 dollars on average, while the mean cost of energy for its top 27 trading partners is 108 dollars.

While residential rates vary enormously, in a middle-class neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, for example, one kilowatt/hour cost some 24 cents in December.

“Lowering the cost of energy is a good thing, but not if it’s done with subsidies that transfer resources from taxpayers to consumers in a blood transfusion that doesn’t get the patient out of the ICU,” Pires said.

He was alluding to the risk of blackouts and the use of power prices to contain an inflation rate that has exceeded the annual target of 4.5 percent for years now.

The government does the same with fuel, keeping consumer prices at artificially low levels since 2005 through Petrobras, the state-owned oil consortium, which sells fuel products on the domestic market at a lower price than what it pays to import them. This subsidy costs an estimated two billion dollars a month, analysts say.

On Jan. 30, the price of gasoline went up 6.6 percent and diesel 5.4 percent. The hike was authorised by the government because the impact on inflation will be neutralised by the reduction in electricity rates. But it will not offset the losses suffered by Petrobras, whose net profit dropped 36 percent last year, in comparison to 2011.

This is another snag in Rousseff’s otherwise excellent performance in the field of energy, which was instrumental in her political rise to the presidency in January 2011.

She had an outstanding run as energy secretary for Rio Grande do Sul, a state that was spared the crisis that forced the country into energy rationing from June 2001 to February 2002.

That position was the springboard for her appointment as mining and energy minister in 2003 and as chief of staff in 2005. This last post in turn paved the way for her nomination to succeed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) in the presidency.

As energy minister she led an electric system reform in 2004 to improve safety and planning.

The memory of the 2001 power shortage sparks fears of a new crisis, but the situation today is not the same, as new investments have been made throughout the system, said Emilio La Rovere, an engineering professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

A number of thermoelectric plants were built to cover energy demand when low reservoir levels reduce hydroelectric power generation capacity, La Rovere noted. But he said there were no absolute guarantees as “zero risk is very costly”.

He added that while government planning has been adequate, there have been glitches in implementation caused by delays in the construction of several projects. He mentioned, for example, wind power plants that are not operative because transmission lines have not been installed.

The controversy over electricity prices is “a dispute among capitalists”, said Gilberto Cervinski, one of the leaders of the Movement of People Affected by Dams.

Cervinski told IPS that it was a battle between power companies, whose profits shot up in the wake of privatisation, and industries, which are now benefiting from the reduction in rates.

The movement – which estimates that more than a million people have been affected by the construction of hydropower dams over the last 30 years – supports the government’s rate cuts. But it is calling for even lower prices for Brazilian families, which it says could be achieved by trimming the profits of distributors and not just generators, as is currently done.

Cervinski also said it was unfair to favour industry with a 30 percent reduction, as it already benefited from cheaper electricity prices, while households were only granted an 18 percent cut.

In addition, he said he was worried that the high rate cuts would affect the financial health of the state power companies, and argued that rates should be double the less than five dollars per kilowatt/hour set by the government.

(END)

Cambambe dam and reservoir on the Kwanza river, to be raised another 30 metres. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
CAMBAMBE, Angola , Dec 10 2012 (IPS)

The Kwanza river in the heart of Angola will be a symbol of Brazilian partnership in African development when power stations along the country’s main source of water are fully operational.

Nine hydroelectric plants and water treatment stations will endeavour to supply the most urgent needs of the metropolitan area of Luanda, and to extend the electricity supply at least to the centre-north of Angola. The process will take more than a decade.

Supplying clean water to 90 percent of the residents of Luanda will take until 2025, according to the master plan. The difficulty is to keep up with the growth of the population in the capital, which is projected to reach 13 million people by then, around twice the present number.

The Cambambe hydropower plant benefits from the Kwanza river’s location in the centre and north of the country, but it also reflects Angola’s misfortunes. Only now, five decades after the first phase was completed, is the complex about to become fully operational. The delay was mainly due to the civil war which wracked the country from independence from Portugal in 1975 until 2002.

An expansion of the hydroelectric station will increase the power supply five-fold, by raising the height of the dam by 30 metres (to 132 metres), as had already been planned in the time of the Portuguese colonial authorities, said Fabricio Andrade, the local manager of the Brazilian company Odebrecht which heads the consortium in charge of the works.

The greater height of water in the reservoir will increase the capacity of the four old turbines, from 45 to 65 megawatts (MW) each. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the expanded station will be ready in 2015, to generate 960 MW and mitigate power outages in Luanda.

The legacy of the war continued to have an effect on the plant during the expansion phase. Construction of the spillway needed was only able to commence after an area of landmines was cleared, which took six months, Andrade said.

Odebrecht was contracted by the Angolan state National Electricity Company (ENE) to carry out three tasks at Cambambe.

The first, which began in 2009, is to refurbish the four original turbines which had deteriorated to the point that they could not generate even half their nominal capacity of 45 MW. A final turbine remains to be refitted with electronic control panels, which will provide “more safety with fewer workers,” Andrade said.

The other two tasks are to raise the height of the dam and spillway, and build a new generator complex, which is to be ready by 2015.

The construction site employs 2,100 people, 89 percent of whom are Angolan, mainly from the surrounding area or the nearby city of Dondo.

There are also 238 workers of a wide range of nationalities, who live together on-site. They come from 15 countries, from Latin America to Eastern Europe, Andrade said.

The foreign employees work for Odebrecht or its partner companies in the project: the Brazilian firm Engevix, France’s Alstom and Germany’s Voith Hydro.

Rufino Álvarez, from Peru, is a typically mobile worker who goes from one mega works project to another. He started out in his own country in 1981, working for other Brazilian transnational corporations, before he joined Odebrecht 25 years ago.

The company sent him to several countries, and he arrived in Angola in 2009 along with his boss, Brazilian equipment manager Roberval Fonseca. They worked on various infrastructure projects in Luanda. Before coming to Cambambe this year, he went home to Peru for a long visit and then to Colombia.

“My work is two-fold: I have one job at the work site and another teaching Angolans, so that this country can continue to grow,” said Álvarez, adding that he has not brought his family over because his children “are all grown up.”

Fonseca, for his part, is keen on employing women and training them to work on soldering jobs and electrical apparatus and motors – trades that were once considered exclusively men’s work. “They are quicker learners, they do everything more carefully and with greater discipline, and are more efficient,” he said, adding that he was happy with the six women workers he has hired so far.

The structures built at Cambambe are small compared with other power plants with a similar capacity. That is because its machine room is underground, installed in a tunnel that fits a large truck. The new second generator will also be underground, with water flowing under the hill to turn the turbines.

And the reservoir itself is small in size. In its middle reaches, the Kwanza river has a steep descent of 940 metres over just 200 kilometres, and its riverbed forms deep valleys and curved gorges, all of which are favourable to the generation of hydropower.

This means the expansion of the Cambambe complex will also have minimal environmental impact. The reservoir will only be enlarged by six square kilometres, said Vladimir Russo, the head of Holísticos, the firm that carried out the environmental impact assessment for the project.

No population will be affected by the dam, because people were never allowed to settle around the hydroelectric station, which was protected during the war, said Russo, who was a management director for the Environment Ministry and a founder of Juventude Ecológica Angolana, an environmental NGO created by young Angolan activists.

Laúca, the biggest power station to be built on the Kwanza river, will have a reservoir size of only 16.6 square kilometres, according to a feasibility study by Brazilian consultancy Intertechne. That is next to nothing for a capacity of 2,067 MW.

Odebrecht is also the Brazilian partner in the Laúca dam on the Kwanza, a river that has given its name to Angola’s currency since 1977, in recognition of the symbolic value of the river.

The Brazilian corporation has also built the Capanda dam, 140 kilometres upstream. The project was contracted in 1984 but only completed in 2007, due to delays caused by the civil war.

This year the company was in charge of diverting the Kwanza river in preparation for the construction of the Laúca hydroelectric complex – situated between Capanda and Cambambe – which has still not been put out to tender.

Odebrecht is also responsible for the public company Águas de Luanda’s project to draw water from the Kwanza for treatment and distribution in the suburbs surrounding the capital.

Near the Capanda hydropower station, Odebrecht has undertaken the development of an agroindustrial hub where it plans to produce sugar, ethanol and electricity from sugarcane, maize and other crops. The project will be based on the large Pundo Andongo estate and will also promote family farming.

This is only part of the Brazilian company’s business activities and projects in Angola, where it is the largest private sector employer, with a total of nearly 20,000 workers.