Jyoti P. Painuly

Barriers to renewable energy penetration; a framework for analysis

Renewable energy has the potential to play an important role in providing energy with sustainability to the vast populations in developing countries who as yet have no access to clean energy. Although economically viable for several applications, renewable energy has not been able to realise its potential due to several barriers to its penetration. A framework has been developed in this paper to identify the barriers to renewable energy penetration and to suggest measures to overcome them.

Financing energy efficiency: lessons from experiences in India and China

Purpose – Improving energy efficiency is considered one of the most desirable and effective short‐term measures to address the issue of energy security, and also reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. However, lack of access to domestic finance is the major hindrance in achieving the potential in China and India. This paper aims to report the experience of a three‐country United Nations Environment Programme/World Bank Energy Efficiency Project (involving China, India and Brazil) that is set up to address the financial barrier and identifies the lessons that can be learnt from the project.Design/methodology/approach – The paper follows the post‐completion review approach of a project and presents the activities undertaken and results obtained from the project.Findings – The project seeks to remove the financial barrier through the development of a commercial banking window for energy efficiency, energy service company development and support, exploring the need for setting up guarantee facilities and ne...

The Clean Development Mechanism: A Bane or a Boon for Developing Countries?

We analyse the gains to developing countries from the participation in the CDM during the Kyoto period (until 2010) in the event an emissions trading (ET) regime exists in the post-Kyoto period (2010–20). We show that the developing countries will always be better-off participating in the CDM if the emissions quota they get in the post-Kyoto period is not linked to their baseline emissions. However if their quota equals (or is related to) their baseline emissions, CDM participation strategy may be a preferred alternative only if the CDM price is high enough to off-set the losses of the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) due to participation in the CDM. We simulate the CDM and ET in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto period and show that with the reduction targets given in the Kyoto Protocol for Annex B countries, participation in the CDM is beneficial to non-Annex B (developing) countries, even if their emissions quota in the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) is determined by their baseline emissions. Abatement supply price in the post-Kyoto period however turns out to be crucial factor in this case.

Development of Power Market in India—Opportunities and Challenges

Electricity market in India has come a long way since its nascent origin in circa 1999. Electricity trading began through inter-regional bulk power transfer from the surplus region in eastern India to deficit regions in western India in 1999. This has led to the emergence of electricity traders, who have helped in optimizing generation asset across the country, and acted as counter-parties to trades and helped absorb the credit risk of distribution companies (DISCOMS), which were in poor financial health. Subsequently, as trade volume picked up, power exchanges with standard contracts were introduced in July 2008. Power exchanges are electronic platforms where anonymous price discovery happens based on supply and demand for power in the short term. The short-term electricity trade has reached 7.58 billion units (9.84 % of total generation) in March 2012 with a market size of approximately US

Diffusion of renewable energy technologies—barriers and stakeholders’ perspectives

4 billion. The short-term market includes power contracts of less than 1-year period, through traders or directly by the distribution utilities, “Day-Ahead” contracts through power exchanges and unscheduled interchange (UI) power trades. This has led to the development of an efficient trading market for electricity, capable of sending market signals for the development of the sector and selection of technology. It has helped increase capacity addition by the private sector. Considering the short-time span since the initiative to develop power market was taken, the achievements are significant. However, a variety of challenges include handling transmission corridor congestion efficiently, developing more products of longer duration and variety to meet diverse requirements of stakeholders, including contracts of 1 year and more to provide timely signals and estimates for required capacity additions, and viability of market players in medium and long term, considering continuing legacy of under-recovery of power cost from consumers. All these have been analyzed in this chapter.