[forumadmin]

“South Asia will be disproportionately affected by the impacts of Climate change, impacts that it has historically contributed less to than those in the North who have used fossil fuels to aid industrialization and develop.

Many see South Asia’s answer to meeting the challenges of Climate change, energy security, population growth and development, is to move to a greater mix of renewables. To ensure a steady flow of energy, one plan that has been put forward in South Asia is the setup a regional energy grid utilizing largely untapped potential of renewables and non-renewables such as natural gas. It would potentially allow countries to trade energy, bring in much needed investment for projects. It could see the introduction of larger scale energy projects such as hydropower and a move away from smaller decentralized schemes.

Is this a more realistic solution to combating the fallout of Climate Change then decentralized energy options, which some argue may never effectively meet all our energy requirements? Will it provide the energy equity, which has been missing during the era of fossil fuel era, or will it be business as usual?”

Let us know what you think!

[Moderator]

Thank you for your contributions to this discussion.

[forumadmin]

[namiz]

Decentralised systems have limitations as Dipti correctly points out. Yet, if sound, such systems would be more appropriate for remote areas as it would be expensive to extend the national or state electricity grids for electrification. As for access to energy, other forms of energy may be more accessible and affordable. Net metering systems with feed in tariffs can wprk where there is a comparatively high possibility of selling to the grid. However, as for reducing effects on and from climate change, use of decentralised systems and South Asian grids fed using electricity from renewable sources are the ones that may serve best

[dan]

[diptimv]

Climate change and energy issues in the South Asia have at least two front, whether urban and rural; or rich and poor. Each front requires a specific stratge. The centralized grid option with RE can work for the urban rich and maybe even the rural rich and to some extent the urban poor, if proper policy enforcing mechanisms are in place. However, for the rural poor, which is the majority of the population in most South Asian countries, only decentralized RE can work.

Even so with decentralized RE for the rural poor, based on countless examples, the nature of our regions' government operations cannot be relied upon. Time and time again, the government in various countries have rolled out larg scale RE plans for the rural poor, only to result in thousands of defunct systems. Even us NGOs doing pilot projects have difficulty in achieving success. Success likely requires a fine balance between grass roots efforts, combined with excellent technical know-how and capacity building of the locals to maintain systems. With proper planning and execution, these aspects can be achived in a large scale program.

It would be useful to look towards successful examples of large scale technology dissemination for the rural poor, before venturing on yet another large scale mistake. One great example is the RERED project in Sri Lanka: www.energyservices.lk.

Looking forward to other thoughts on this topic.
_________________
Dipti Vaghela
Orissa, India

[dommy]

this is an interesting concept as mentioned in another thread , a common grid could be used to transmit exessive renewable energy from RE rich countries and help reduce random burning of fossil fuel.

but this does not hinder the promotion of decentralise energy generation the decentralised generation units can also be connected to such a common grid. making greater use of distributed RE sources.

mechansims need to be set up to connect even relativley small generation units to a common gri
( this is similar to the model of small butiques existing among large super markets in the retail business which is a very strong stable model)

key things to keep in mind is equity and quality energy distribution should not be considered as solely a profit making activity then the benefits might only be reached by money rich people. and might even drive the generation sources to be entirley fossil fuel driven as they a shonw as cheap ( due to wrong costing methods) at present