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A
workshop on “Climate Change Mitigation
Projects in the Decentralised Energy Sector” was organised by
Development Alternatives in association with Department of Earth
Sciences, Pondicherry University on 2nd and 3rd December, 1999, at
Hotel Pondicherry Ashok. This workshop was part of Climate Change
Outreach and Awareness (CCOA) programme of USAID, being carried out
by Development Alternatives, New Delhi. A few other organisations
in India namely CII, IIM Ahmedabad, FICCI and TERI are also carrying
out this programme. The Climate Change Outreach Programme seeks to
increase the level of awareness and institutional capacity within
key Indian institutions and sectors vis a vis Climate Change
issues.
The focus of the workshop was to assess the role of decentralised
energy sources in meeting the twin objective of addressing the
development needs of small rural communities and mitigating the
carbon dioxide emissions at the same time. This potential of the
renewables to meet the growing energy demand of the world poor
communities at substantially lower level of emissions is being
termed as the ‘win-win’ potential of renewables.
The workshop was represented by representatives of companies working
in the renewable energy field, some of the funding agencies, a few
NGOs and the local host i.e. the Department of Earth Sciences,
Pondicherry University. The local convenor, Dr. M. S. Pandian
welcomed the participants in the workshop. In his welcome address
he highlighted the important role of renewable energy sources in
view of the limited stocks of conventional fossil fuels.
Dr. Kalipada Chatterjee, Development Alternatives, in his
introductory remarks gave a brief account of the human activities
leading to climate change, the findings of the IPCC, the likely
impacts of climate change and various mechanisms to mitigate climate
change. He also pointed out that the objective of the workshop was
to network with the Indian business community and Funding Sources
and to provide a platform for direct Interaction of the two
players. He further mentioned that this workshop would lead to
capacity building in design and implementation of Climate Change
Mitigation Projects (CCMPs) and also address to the immediate
objective of developing a portfolio of CCMPs in the Decentralised
Energy Sector in India.
Dr. S. K. Mishra, Winrock International India, made a presentation
on the role of decentralized energy sources in mitigating the
climate change and the programmes being carried out in the country
for the promotion of decentralized energy. He informed that India
has earned the distinction of being the only country in the world to
have an exclusive ministry for renewable energy. Various agencies
in the sectors MNC’s, private sector, public sector, industrial
associations, FI’s/Banks, NGO’s, state government and international
organisations have been taking active or supporting role in making
the rural energy programme a success. He mentioned that India has
got a vast potential of renewable sources of energy but only a
little has been harrnessed so far. He also mentioned that for
renewable energy programme to play a major role the need of the hour
is to make renewable energy market based rather than subsudy based
and focus on potential areas for commercialisation. He also
suggested that to make these programmes effective different
strategies should be adopted for differenty technologies.
Ms. Kavita Sinha, USAID, made a presentation on the Climate Change
Mitigation programme of the USAID. She mentioned that the largest
contributor to India’s GHG emissions is energy sector and the demand
for electricity will double during the next decade. She also
endordorsed the view that the scope for improving energy efficiency
and introducing decentralized energy systems for boosting the
economy and reducing GHG emissions is tremendous.
Ms. Sinha also made a mention of various Climate Change Mitigation
Projects like Trade in Environmental Services and Technologies/Clean
Technology Initiative, Technology Development Commercialization
Fund, Greenhouse Gas Pollution Prevention project (GEP) and Energy
Conservation and Commercialization, the objectives of these
programmes and total funding available under these programme.
Mr. John Ryan, Hagler Bailly Services Inc., USA, briefed the
participants of various international funds available for Climate
Change Mitigation Projects. He mentioned of broadly three
categories of the funds available viz. Environmentally Targetted
financing mechanisms, Early Action funding sources, and Clean
Development Mechanism. He elucidated on how to develop a climate
change project and how to get the finances for the project.
Mr. Ryan mentioned that ET, Early Action and CDM are designed to
recognise, reward and bring to market the environmental and
sustainability benefits of well structured climate friendly
technology applications. Further the iInternational climate change
funding mechanisms are looking for a sound approach to GHG
reductions, implemented by management teams with a successful track
record delivering “bankable” financial and technical structures. He
was optimistic that CDM will come, the question is not if but when
and how.
Dr. Kalipada Chatterjee, made a presentation on how to develop
sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for the CCMPs. He
mentioned of three processes viz. A participatory process, a careful
scrutiny of the project proposal and use of a ready reckoner, to
find out indicators and presented a few case study also. He also
suggested that the SDIs so developed must be user friendly and be
driven by host country’s social, environment, development and
technological priorities and strategies. He further stressed that
the SDIs should be simple but robust and not many in number.
A number of projects in the decentalized energy sector were
presented. The workshop being a regional one, the companies
represented were mainly from the southern states. The companies who
came up with projects were Aban Energies Ltd., Chennai, Kirlosker
Electric Company Ltd, Banglore, Solaris Systems Pvt. Ltd., Cochin,
Polyene Film Industries Ltd., Hyderabad, Shri Shakti Alternatives
Energy Ltd., Hyderabad, Udhaya Semiconductors Ltd., Chennai, Bhoruka
Power Corporation Ltd., Banglore and DESI Power India.
A number of good projects were recieved in solar, biomass
co-generation, wind and mini-hydel sector. The projects presented
were to take care of rural electrification and to cater the needs of
small scale enterprises. The annexure attached gives a brief ready
reference of the projects presented. Renewable sources of energy
are considered to be zero emission fuels, thus promoting these
projects means reduction of carbon dioxide emission which would have
otherwise happened due to the use of conventional fossil fuels.
The project developers were very enthusiastic about the idea of
getting funds under CCMPs. They, however, had certain queries and
doubts regarding the mechanisms of funding. Many of their queries
were resolved through discussions during the deliberations of the
workshop as well as through one-to-one meeting of DA and HB with
project developers during the breaks and after the sessions were
over.
The workshop concluded with a discussion on follow-up action and Dr.
Chatterjee thanking the participants for their interest in making
the event a sucess. He requested the participants to show the same
kind of cooperation in future communications also so as to help
expedite the follow-up actions. |