Pictures of the Future      Spring 2008

Renewable Energy for Developing Countries

The boom in renewable energy sources is benefiting developing countries, especially in remote areas not connected to power grids. It is also leading to environmental projects in large emerging markets such as India and China.

Africa is dark when seen from space—at least at night compared to Europe and North America. There are two reasons for this. Africa is sparsely populated and it lacks electricity. Some 500 million people south of the Sahara live without electricity—that’s nearly one-third of the 1.6 billion people who still heat with wood and use kerosene lamps for light.

Power plants and transmission lines are expensive, especially on the poor, but large, land masses of Africa and Asia. In fact, the International Energy Agency estimates that expanding electrification to an extent that would halve the number of people living in poverty worldwide would cost around $16 billion a year for the next ten years. Such a reduction of poverty was one of the "Millennium Development Goals" set by the United Nations at the turn of the century. It’s far from being achieved—and sharply rising prices for fossil raw materials haven’t done anything to help.

Still, there is hope, as technological advances have made "eco-electricity" more affordable. A mission in Tanzania, for example, now generates electricity with a hybrid facility consisting of solar cells and an engine that runs on oil made from the local jatropha bush, thereby eliminating the need for a diesel generator. In northern China, the GTZ German technical cooperation organization is supporting a project that converts 5,000 t of cow dung into biogas every day. And the World Bank invests $3.6 billion per year in energy projects, half of which focus on tapping renewable sources and improving energy efficiency.

Recently, in cooperation with a group of partners, the World Bank launched the "Lighting Africa" initiative. The goal of the initiative is to provide up to 250 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa with access to electrical lighting by means of distributed power systems, energy-saving lamps, and LEDs by 2030. Lack of lighting is one reason why millions of children in Africa can’t study at night. With this in mind, Siemens subsidiary Osram has become the world’s first lighting systems manufacturer to replace millions of light bulbs in Africa and Asia with energy-saving lamps. In line with the Kyoto Protocol, the company will receive CO₂ certificates to help finance the project (see India's New Light).

"There’s no single way to bring electricity to Africa," the World Bank concludes. One problem is that more than half the people in Africa live in the countryside, far from power lines. In response, the World Bank plans to install very small but efficient hydroelectric power generators with an output of up to 1,000 watts each. At an estimated price of 0.15 US-$/kWh in 2015, the electricity from these mini plants will be among the cheapest in the future, at least in sparsely populated areas rich in water resources. The World Bank also predicts that the cost of generating electricity with small windmills and solar cells will decline by around ten cents over the next ten years to 0,35 US-$/kWh.

Ministry of Renewable Energy. Sophisticated technology by itself won’t be enough to get the job done. In the past, people often forgot to service solar facilities, which is why many expensive solar units ended up failing. "Now we’re using integrated solutions," says Stefan Opitz, head of the Energy department at GTZ. Micro credits, for example, can help a merchant in a remote Bangladesh village purchase and maintain a solar power facility and supply neighbors with electricity for lights, radios, and cell phones. It’s questionable, however, whether such local setups can achieve the goal of across-the-board electrification. "It sounds good in theory," says Opitz. But in practice the operation and servicing of several micro-networks is more complicated than managing a big network.

Some countries have made progress. In India, for example, many people know about alternative energy sources, even though one out of three Indians lives without electricity. This awareness is due to the fact that the energy shortage caused by the oil crisis of the 1970s led the government to establish a Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; the country now plans to meet 10 % of its electricity needs with power from alternative sources by 2012. India is already fifth in the world when it comes to installed wind power output.

Wind energy facilities make good sense in those areas that already have a power grid. According to the World Bank, one kilowatt-hour of wind power will cost around five U.S. cents in 2015—the same as electricity from a modern gas-fired power plant currently costs. Only electricity from coal will be cheaper, as long as it doesn’t include the costs of climate change.

The goal of the Chinese government is to increase the share of energy produced from renewable resources from the current 8 % to 15 % by 2020. Beijing, says World Bank energy expert Amil Cabraal, is taking a well thought-out approach and promoting mainly those energy sources that can compete with coal.

China also has a system similar to the one in Germany that requires energy suppliers to purchase ecologically produced electricity at a fixed price. Cabraal says that emerging markets are inspired by Europe’s extensive investment in renewable energy sources and the EU’s plans to meet 20 % of its requirements with environmentally friendly power and heat by 2020. Still, Cabraal warns, the green energy revolution will require a huge amount of technological expertise and planning.

It’s a huge challenge, and mistakes are easily made. The Capgemini consulting firm, for example, claims that Beijing’s plans to increase China’s capacity by 950 GW (or 1,000 power plants) between 2006 and 2020 will result in a 30 % shortfall. It’s also clear that the global climate problem cannot be solved by micro power plants or distributed solar cell facilities alone. Says Opitz: "It will be some time before the world can stop using big power plants."
                                                                                                            Jeanne Rubner