Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
5. Developments in the
application of suppressed
demand in future
applications
It may be possible to develop a methodology
to apply suppressed demand principle to
any one of a range of services. This is being
attempted in the development of large-scale
methodologies for thermal performance
and solar water heating. What has been
understood from this experience of having a
CDM project validated with these elements
is that the suppressed demand concept can
effectively be applied to energy efficiency as
well as energy service supply using cleaner
energy technologies.
The principle application of the concept to a
situation is not only suppressed as a result
of poverty but also/rather by lack of access
to “modern” energy service. The poverty
and lack of access nexus by and large will
fit squarely with the same areas that are the
focus of the Millennium Development Goals.
Using a suppressed demand entry point to
these remote areas’ development, could
leverage the much needed underlying finance
for further development. With the advent of
some details on the CDM Programme Activity
(UNFCCC 2006), the transaction costs and
the ease of registering activities under a
Registered Programme of Activities (PoA) that
allows for the registration of multiple project
activities under one design document (through
increasing net revenue from the activity) will
contribute to facilitating access to underlying
project finances even in public sector
projects. In private sector activities such as
agricultural processing, extractive industries,
small industrial/commercials concerns etc.
the income from the generation of credits
should by definition result in the removal of
barriers to investment in the project activity’s
implementation.
6. Conclusions
Suppressed or growing demand is an
important issue, especially in the context of
small-scale CDM projects and Demand Side
Management involving end users of energy
services. Bringing down the emissions and
demand trajectories of developing countries
will only be possible, if the expected and
hoped for increase in economic activity uses
high-efficiency, lower emissions technologies
and builds on current energy management
behaviour. Even if emissions do not decrease
with respect to the current level, they do
decrease with respect to the level that would
have been reached had a less-efficient
technology been used. The current rules CDM
and EEDSM do not explicitly define suppressed
demand, and for this concept to be employed
this is essential. We show that taking account
of suppressed demand is a powerful way of
leveraging green house mitigation interest in
avoiding future emissions from locations and
increasing demand for electricity, which have
increasing livelihoods and are likely to satisfy
basic energy service needs in the future. A
key challenge for research is now to get a
consensus on the level of suppressed demand
and the acceptable (real and measurable)
methods to predict this.
To get projects expressly utilising the climate
mitigation mechanisms and EEDSM to the
most marginalised, the energy poor and the
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