RenewableS 2013 GlObal STaTUS RePORT - REN21

Solid biomass applications for drying and curing continue to
increase in number, as do biogas plants, which are used widely
for rural electrification and cooking. Biogas plants are based on
simple technology and continue to increase in number where
households and commercial farms have access to sufficient
animal manure for fuel. 14 High upfront capital costs of larger
plants, however, as well as operation and maintenance requirements
and the lack of familiarity with biogas systems, have
slowed their uptake in poor, rural areas. Even so, approximately
48 million domestic biogas plants have been installed since the
end of 2011 for rural electrification, with the vast majority of
these in China (42.8 million) and India (4.4 million), and smaller
numbers in Cambodia and Myanmar. 15
Ethanol can also be used as a cooking fuel instead of traditional
solid biomass and charcoal. In Mozambique, an ethanol plant
with production capacity of almost 2 million litres per year
opened in early 2012. The company buys surplus cassava
feedstock from about 3,000 local farmers and sells the ethanol
fuel and clean cooking stoves at prices that are competitive
with the local retail price of charcoal. 16
■■Policies and Regulatory Frameworks
Policies that promote renewable energy and address barriers to
their use have played a critical role in accelerating deployment
and attracting investment to this sector, with countries applying
a range of formal strategies aimed at promoting renewable
solutions to the challenges of energy access. 17 These initiatives
are integrated increasingly into broader rural development
plans, with a focus on pro-poor policies and frameworks that
are broad-based, attract new investment in energy access, and
support local participation in developing and managing energy
systems.
In many countries, greater political commitment is providing
impetus to more integrated policy foundations, driving more
decisive action, and opening up substantial public resources
in both the medium and long terms. Policymakers are also
benefitting from decades of past experience, both good and
bad, building programmes that are more sensitive to the social
and economic realities of their respective settings. Top-down
approaches, such as those adopted by rural electrification
agencies in sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1990s, are making
way for enabling policy frameworks developed through
bottom-up (endogenous) processes.
China, Brazil, India, and South Africa are in the lead, developing
large-scale programmes that are making significant inroads into
addressing the dual challenges of energy access and sustainability.
Progress is also evident in Costa Rica and the Philippines,
where rural electrification cooperatives have been adopted
to oversee the overall planning and implementation of off-grid
electrification programmes. Argentina, Bangladesh, Kenya,
Mali, Mexico, and Sri Lanka are encouraging off-grid renewable
energy programmes, often with a blend of public and private
sector resources, while many countries continue to benefit from
international assistance. For example, the EnDev programme
(supported by Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) has provided 9 million
people with access to modern energy services in Benin, Bolivia,
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Indonesia, Nepal, Nicaragua, and
Peru. 18
Formal targets remain a fundamental building block of these
initiatives. Countries with electrification targets include
Bangladesh, Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, the Marshall Islands,
Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. 19 (See
Reference Table R17.) Several countries, including Brazil and
China, established new energy-access targets in 2012, with
specific resource allocations and monitoring systems being set
up to achieve them.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
plans to provide electrification to up to 78 million households by
2030, largely through mini-grids. 20 In October 2012, ECOWAS
also adopted a regional renewable energy policy that aims to
serve 25% of the rural population with decentralised renewable
energy systems. 21 These initiatives aim to directly tackle the
challenge of energy access in West Africa, where more than
170 million people lack access to electricity. 22
Many programmes focus on the rollout of specific technologies
such as solar home systems. India’s Rural Electricity Policy
envisions off-grid solutions based on stand-alone systems for
villages/habitations where grid connectivity may not be feasible
or cost effective, and on the adoption of isolated lighting
technologies incorporating solar PV where neither stand-alone
systems nor grid connectivity are viable. In Bangladesh, the
Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development
Project is currently installing some 1,000 solar home systems
per day. This project is operated by an institutional partnership
between the Bangladesh Infrastructure Development Company
(IDCOL) and about 40 NGOs. 23
Significant investment is and will be needed to maintain these
and other programmes, and to achieve ambitious electrification
targets. The United Nations General Assembly’s “Energy
Access for All” objective of universal access to modern energy
by 2030 will require an annual investment of an estimated USD
36–41 billion. 24
The contribution of renewable energy technologies to the
development of productive activities can significantly improve
financial viability and sustainability of these investments,
and large-scale off-grid renewable energy programmes have
succeeded in addressing the initial capital costs barrier
through a variety of financing instruments. 25 Often, subsidies
are applied to incentivise operators to adopt renewable energy
technologies while developing electrification schemes in
remote communities. This buy-down of initial capital costs has
facilitated the pace of deployment of renewable energy systems
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