Energy Technologies for the Poor Technology for poverty alleviation: Relevance and Prospects in South Asia October 10-11, 2003 British Council, New Delhi Bikash Pandey Country Representative, Nepal Winrock International.

Where do the poor in South Asia get their energy from? South Asia poor: dollar poor < $2/day 84%, <$1/day 41%, calorie poor 29%. Biomass – cooking, heating. Primary energy 70% of population. Biomass meets 33% (India, Pakistan) to > 80% (Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh). Fossil fuel increasing - urban, biomass % decreasing but absolute amounts increasing into future. Transportation needs met by fossil fuels. Milling, water pumping, lighting, communications powered by national grid, diesel, or small-scale renewables.

Energy Consumption Nepal

Commercial Energy Consumption in South Asia

Meeting Millennium Development Goals – role of energy services Halving extreme poverty Halving the number of people living with hunger Achieving universal education Promoting gender equality Reducing mortality/improving health Ensuring environmental sustainability

Practical ways to meet goals  Use both centralized and decentralized services, innovatively.  Distributed services – non-electricity services, multiple institutions, polycentric, lower cost, shared investment by users.  Grid expansion – expensive but more versatile. Need for community mobilization.

Rural Energy Services - Nepal  80,000 new households on grid per year, 30,000 in rural areas. < population increase. Money loser for utility.  Decentralized energy services – together reaching around 120,000 new households each year, all in rural areas:  Biogas: 20,000 Mainstream or alternative?  Solar PV: 15,000  Micro-hydro:10,000  Micro-hydro milling: 25,000  Improved cook stoves: 50,000  > 2/3rds investment by users.

Scenario - 50% of households with modern energy

Decentralized Rural Energy Services - Biogas  Implemented by Biogas Support Programme.  Family biogas plants: 100,000 installed by end of 2002; Around 20,000 new plants being installed in  Indicators of success  > 98% functioning well.  Real prices reduced by 30% in 10 years.  Feeding rate increased to 98%.  Average size down to 6.02 m 3.  Higher per capita than India and catching up with China!  Successful model based on  Intelligently designed program  Independence in implementation  High Quality and Reliable Product!

Rural Energy Services - Biogas  Subsidy effectively used to leverage:  high quality installations and competition among 40 private suppliers;  Quality of after sales support;  Increase feeding rate by promoting smaller plants.  Substantial social benefits  Reduction in fuel collection, cooking and cleaning time of 3 hours a day  Health benefits from reduction in indoor air pollution  Better compost  Reduced deforestation and CO2 emissions Global benefits: Plant pays for itself with the CO 2 emissions abated over its life – 100 tons of CO 2.

Challenges to Mainstreaming Distributed Energy Services Models –Replication of working models Market – based with Quality control, biogas and solar PV, Community Mobilization, micro-hydro, plantations, Scaling up numbers, capacity building. –New models needed Making micro-credit available to the RET sector. Income generation coupled with RET promotion. HELP. Peoples’ participation in extending centralized services.

Challenges Broadening of vision of “energy for the poor” Non-electricity services Centralized and decentralized working together Keeping the focus - Sustainable long term funding from government, levy on commercial energy, carbon - CDM. Governance - Keeping programs robust against political interference and corruption.

Thank you!