reegle Blog

It’s that time of year again when REEEP tells the world that it’s seeking project ideas for funding. The partnership’s target is primarily the Southern Hemisphere or what some refer to as the “developing world” or “economies in transition”. Anybody with a project idea regarding renewable energy or energy efficiency can apply for funding.

The key: the project must be focused on changing policies, regulations or legislation in favour of sustainable energy and energy conservation. The last funding round provided grants to the government of Mexico for the establishment of ‘net metering’ laws and the government of Uganda for the development of policies that support solar water heaters. A REEEP-funded project in Kazakhstan resulted in the country’s Parliament passing new legislation to support the wind industry.

But it’s not only policy work that gets funded. Attracting finance to new markets is also a key goal of the partnership. So, projects that deal with ‘risk mitigation’ , ‘guarantee structures” or other financial mechanisms are also being funded. One ongoing project is a microfinance initiative for solar laterns in the Solomon Islands.

Grants are capped at 100,000 Euros, so up to 43 project proposals will become the lucky recipients in early 2009.

To learn more about the Call for Proposals look for the 7th REEEP Programme Call on REEEP’s website.

Today on Capitol Hill, key leaders of the Senate, UN, Bush administration, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), and other sustainable energy experts met to discuss energy justice and the alleviation of both poverty and climate change through sustainable energy solutions. Energy justice strives to stem the death and sickness of millions of individuals annually from the inefficient burning of biomass for cooking, heating and lighting and to bring appropriate energy technologies to the more than 2 billion impoverished people across the developing world without access to modern energy services.

Increasing access to cleaner cooking technologies and energy resources, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, has the potential to substantially improve health, poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, education, and gender equality in developing countries. It also may help address a growing recognition of the global warming impact of black soot, a primary byproduct of the inefficient burning of biomass for energy.

Appropriate energy technologies and the efficient use of energy will play a critical role in achieving energy justice, because they offer decentralized solutions that are available to everybody. Dr. Lakshman Guruswamy, Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Security at the University of Colorado, stated “U.S. energy and foreign assistance laws and policies can be strengthened to better facilitate energy justice by, for example, specifically providing and leveraging technical and capital assistance for the development and deployment of appropriate energy technologies in developing countries.”

The United States is keen to play a leading role in support of energy justice. Senator Ken Salazar, Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and Chair of the event, Senator Richard Lugar, Ranking Member and Former Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Under Secretary Paula Dobriansky, U.S. State Department, Democracy and Global Affairs, all spoke about the important role of the United States in reducing poverty globally by accelerating the deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.

The UN and partnerships like REEEP play a crucial role in facilitating energy justice. Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, Director-General, UNIDO, and Chair, UN Energy and Dr. Marianne Osterkorn, International Director of REEEP, highlighted their contributions in this regard.

“Energy justice can be achieved by directing foreign investment into renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in the developing world. Attracting investors, both foreign and domestic, public and private, requires supportive regulatory frameworks that minimize risk and utilize innovative finance tools – both of which are facilitated by our partnership,” stated Dr. Osterkorn.

For photos see our photo gallery

At the annual REEEP-Wilton Park event last week, more than sixty representatives of business, government and climate negotiators met to discuss climate change and energy security post-Bali. This was the first time that REEEP invited climate negotiators to the event . Business typically does not have access to the inner circles of Kyoto climate negotiations.

A major outcome was the realization that the developed world’s accountability will have to increase with respect to emissions reduction work in the developing world.  Actions will have to be “measurable and verifiable”.

A report of the outcomes will be published in September.

In preparation for a big Green Press Conference in August 2008, Andrew Mannle, Mike Ratner and Paul Johnston premiered “The Green Radio Show” end of June with a roundtable meeting of Media, experts and grass roots activist.

Because there is a lot of conflicting information, misinformation, and changing information in the green space, the Green Press Conference sees itself as an opportunity to present these issues to mainstream journalists and open a dialogue with journalists to hear their questions and strategies for covering the crucial topics of climate change, the energy economy and sustainable solutions.

Peter Richards from REEEP participated at this press conference and presented REEEP, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership. He spoke about instituting renewable energy in developing countries and what the developed world can do to help these countries. Peter stressed that we should not only focus on the +5 countries (China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico) in case of sustainability issues but have a look on other developing countries too.

After his presentation he introduced the STERN-Report to the audience which resulted in a very interesting discussion about several different topics (ie. “green things cost more money”).

See “The green radio show @ IDEOCAST” for further information and the whole lineup oft the cast. You can listen to or download the whole cast there too.

I just wanted to inform you about an interesting side-event at WIREC 2008:

Accelerating the Deployment of Renewable Energy Technologies

Organized by: Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) with American Council for Renewable Energy (ACORE); Alliance to Save Energy (ASE); US Department of State (link); Environment Canada (link)
Date: 4 March 2008, 5:00pm - 6:30pm
Venue: The Washington Convention Centre, Room: 156

One must be a registered participant at WIREC to be admitted to the side event. Please see www.wirec2008.gov for more information.

Description (partly taken from americanrenewables.com):
At the request of the US State Department, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) has carried out regional consultation meetings in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Southern Africa. The consultations, with regional RE companies, energy utilities, financial institutions, regulators, NGO s and consumers, have assessed how national governments can help to accelerate the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies within their regions, focusing on the following areas:

• Agriculture and Rural and economic development
• Technology, Research and Development
• Finance and investment
• Commercialisation

Within these areas, the consultation process has focussed on understanding:

• What drives current successful investments in RE
• What policy tools and business models underlie successful RE investments
• What problems does the current policy and business environment present to potential RE investors/project developers

The outputs of the REEEP regional meetings/consultations are contained in a report which provides a clear assessment of the status and opportunities for renewable energy systems, and provide direct suggestions on how national governments and the international framework can help to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy systems within their regions. The report, which will be the focus of the proposed side event, provides a clear and specific regional message on what is currently working, what is not working, and what is needed for renewable energy systems to be developed, attract investment and be deployed in the delivery of sustainable energy services for development and environmental stewardship.

You can download the Agenda here

I would be very happy to see many people there and I am looking forward to interesting discussions with the representatives of the REEEP regional secretariats of North America, South East Asia, Southern Africa and Latin America.

The side event was well attended and the quality of the presentations were good. The UNEP presentation seemed more appropriate to the theme of the workshop and PwC presented their project plans.The presentation from Saurabh Kumar at BEE was also useful. Most of the other presentations ended up presenting their organisations or their projects rather than speak to the occasion. But all in all a good show. Majumdar, Chair of IREDA did a nice summary and conclusion at the end.

The DSDS opening ceremony was very impressive with two presidents and four prime ministers. It is interesting to see the climate divide and the difference in positions between both the developing and developed countries surface again. The president of Maldives who won the DSDS sustainable leadership award reminded both groups about the plight of his country and other small islands. It is unclear whether any action taken post 2012 will have singificant effect on reducing climate change impacts in the next 50 years but I hope we all do something about the problem as a civilised society.

The project managers meeting was organised at the TERI RETREAT near the Solar Energy centre. My second time at the RETREAT and liked it better this time. The after-dinner speech from Ajay mathur was very good. The level of participation was not as good as last year and were mostly managers rather than heads of organisations and so were the quality of the outcomes. We need to see beyond the mist of minor operational issues and create a strategic vision for REEEP programmes in such occasions. It is important to structure and orient this meeting to make it more strategic and less operational.  Anyway something to ponder about before the next installment…

Several meetings on the sidelines IREDA, BEE and Pachauri at TERI. There seems to be a healthy respect for REEEP and its activities across the board. We need to quickly leverage this into action on the ground through our actions/programmes.

This reegle weblog has been opened on 21 February 2008 and will inform about the reegle Information Gatway for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency as well as about the REEEP Partnership (Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership) - and relevant events and news in the area of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency worldwide.