Technology Transfer for Renewable Energy

Gill Wilkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136533198
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Tecnologia e ingegneria
• Subtopic: Risorse energetiche rinnovabili

This text highlights the role that renewable energy can play in achieving sustainable development. It focuses on rural areas of developing countries, looking in particular at stand-alone solar home systems and grid-connected biomass cogeneration plants. It analyzes the main barriers to the successful transfer of renewable energy technology, with case studies from a range of South-East Asian, South Asian, Pacific and African countries, and explains the ways in which these obstacles can be overcome. The roles of the key players involved and how the Kyoto Protocol can facilitate the transfer in order to mitigate climate change are also discussed.

Chapter 1

A Role for Renewables

1.1 Improving Energy Security

1.1.1 Trends in World Energy Use

Global demand for energy is rising. Recent predictions estimate that the 1997 total world primary energy demand of 8,610 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) will have increased 30% by 2010 and 57% by 2020, reaching 13,529 Mtoe.¹ The current share of world primary energy supply provided by different fuels is predicted to change from 1997 to 2020 as follows: oil remaining around 40%; natural gas increasing from 22% to 26%; coal decreasing from 26% to 24%; nuclear decreasing from 7% to 5%; large hydro decreasing from 3% to 2%; and other renewables increasing from 2% to 3%.² Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show that although the shares of some fuels in world primary energy supply are likely to decrease or remain static, the supply of all fuels is predicted to increase in real terms. Thus it is predicted that there will be a continued reliance on fossil fuels for the next few decades at least.

Figure 1.1: World primary energy supply, 1997 (Mtoe)

Source: Based on figures from WEO (2000).

Figure 1.2: World primary energy supply, 2020 (Mtoe)

Source: Based on figures from WEO (2000).

The proportional reliance on fossil fuels is not in reality as great as shown in Figure 1.1, as these figures show only supply of commercial energy and thus leave out traditional biomass, which is a major source of energy used in developing countries. Traditional biomass is not bought or sold, so it does not enter into the commercial chain and therefore statistics on its use are patchy and unreliable. However, it has been estimated that traditional biomass accounts for around 34% of total primary energy consumption in developing countries, represents more than 90% of total energy demand in some of the least developed countries and is predicted to continue to play an important role over the next few decades.³

The projected growth in energy supply and relative percentages of different energy sources shown in Figure 1.2 are based on the IEA reference scenario where growth in demand is based on continued present trends. The scenario aims to take account of a range of new policies in OECD countries designed to combat climate destabilization. The policies included were all enacted or announced by mid-2000, though may not have been fully implemented as yet. A number of other organizations have looked at different scenarios and made projections of energy supply into the future, and this IEA scenario is felt by some to be rather conservative with respect to the growth of renewable energy. This is emphasized even more by the omission of traditional biomass from the figures. However, for the purposes of this book the IEA figures will be used as a basis for some broad analysis of the likely impact of the CDM on renewable energy uptake (see Chapter 3).

Box 1.1: Energy Sources and Terms Used

Energy Sources

There are many different sources of energy, including:

• fossil fuels: coal, natural gas and oil (including derivatives such as kerosene, gasoline and diesel);
• nuclear;
• renewable energy: large and small hydro;^a solar; wind; geothermal; energy from oceans (wave, tidal and thermal); biomass (wood, dung, leaves, crop residues and animal and human waste);
• municipal and industrial waste (used for combustion or production of gas).

Terms Used in This Book

• Conventional fuels include fossil fuels, large hydro and nuclear.
• Traditional biomass refers to the traditional, often inefficient, use of biomass resources, for example in open fires, three-stone fires or wood and charcoal stoves.
• Modern biomass is the cleaner, more efficient use of biomass resources, for example in efficient cooking stoves, for electricity generation (e.g. combined heat and power), and in liquid biofuels and biogas.
• New renewables exclude large hydro and traditional biomass.
• Combustible renewables include solid biomass and animal products, and gas and liquids from biomass.
• Combustible renewables and waste (CRW) includes both industrial waste and municipal waste.
• Commercial energy means energy that is bought and sold in the marketplace e.g. electricity, fossil fuels and charcoal.
• Non-commercial energy means fuels that are gathered free of charge e.g. wood, leaves, agricultural residues and dung.

^a Small hydro is defined in various ways around the world, from 1 MW up to 50 MW in some cases. This book uses a definition of up to 15 MW for small hydro.

The two most significant factors influencing growth of world energy demand are economic growth and population growth. It is expected that nearly 70% of the growth in primary energy demand between 2000 and 2020 will come from developing countries and economies in transition (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4). This is predicted to be due to high rates of population increase and urbanization, rapid industrial expansion, economic growth and a continued move to commercial fuels from non-commercial fuels.

Figure 1.3: World primary energy demand by region, 1997 (%)

Source: WEO (2000).

Figure 1.4: World primary energy demand by region, 2020 (%)

Source: WEO (2000).

Figures 1.3 and 1.4 show the estimated change in world primary energy supply by region from 1997 to 2020. They show a predicted increase in demand in developing countries from 34% in 1997 to 45% in 2020, China being the developing country with the greatest increase. In 1997 OECD countries accounted for just over 1 billion people (around one-sixth of the world population) and a staggering 54% of world energy demand, whereas in developing countries and economies in transition around five billion people consumed only 46% of world energy supply. This made the average energy consumption per capita in OECD countries around six times higher than in developing countries and EITs. The comparison is even more stark if one looks only at the least developed countries. These regional statistics hide the fact that on an annual basis the 2 billion poorest people, whose income is US$1,000 or less, use barely 0.2 toe of energy per capita, whereas the billion richest people, whose income is US$22,000 or more, use approximately 5 toe per capita – around 25 times as much. ⁴

Projected demand for electricity will grow more rapidly than that for any other form of commercial energy, at an average rate of increase of 2.8% per year from 1997 to 2020. Table 1.1 shows that demand for electricity is expected to double from 1997 to 2020. It is estimated that, today, around 1.7 billion people (nearly 30% of the world’s population) in developing countries are without access to electricity.⁵ The population in developing countries is increasing rapidly and although electrification is taking place in many of these countries, it is not keeping pace with population growth. But in countries with strict birth control measures and laws (e.g. China) electrification rates are keeping up with and even exceeding population growth.⁶ Around 3,000 GW of new generating capacity will need to be built between 1997 and 2020, more than half of it in developing countries.⁷

Table 1.1: World total final energy consumption (Mtoe)

Source: Data taken from WEO (2000).

Population and energy demand increases in developing countries highlight the urgent need for sustainable, affordable and environmentally sound energy systems. The choice of energy technologies (in particular large power-generating technologies) among those available to developing countries in the next few years is extremely important if they are to develop sustainable energy supply networks in the future, due to technology lock-in effects. That is, it is costly to invest in new generation technology, so once the country has selected and invested in a technology it will continue to use it for many years, until its useful life is over. For their part, industrialized countries need to continue developing and deploying renewable energy technology in their own countries to help reduce technology costs, mitigate environmental impacts and develop the range of technologies needed for sustainable energy supply.

1.1.2 Current Deployment of Renewable Energy and Future Prospects

Modern biomass has an important role to play in providing cleaner, more efficient energy services for cooking and space heating in developing countries. Another promising application for new renewable technologies, particularly in the short to medium term, is electricity generation. Table 1.2 shows electricity generation from non-hydro renewable energy in 1997, broken down by region and energy source. These figures indicate that total capacity in 1997 was around 48 GW Approximately 77% of this capacity is deployed in the OECD, with Asia also taking a significant share (10%). Of the non-hydro renewables, combustible renewables and waste (CRW) have the highest installed capacity, accounting for 65% of the total, and wind and geothermal have shares of 17% and 16% respectively. As these figures exclude hydro, it is worth noting that an energy technology study funded by the European Commission estimated that there was around 28 GW of small hydro capacity worldwide in 1995. ⁸

Table 1.2: Non-hydro new renewable electricity generating capacity, 1997 (GW)

Source: Data taken from WEO (2000).

Table 1.3 shows the amount of additional non-hydro renewable energy electricity generating capacity forecast to be built over the peri...