microPower - now a global campaign!

Following a global spread of responses to this blog and the superb discussions with delegates from Greenpeace etc at WSF 2004, The microPower Initiative must now join the global quest for inexpensive solar solutions and execute small but doable steps towards meeting this scenario:

Our world faces a grim energy scenario with increasing deforestation, fossil and fissile fuel reserves facing depletion; climate changes from the Greenhouse effect aided by harmful emissions from a host of processes attributed to the industrialized nations and more fatal pollution by fuels. Millions of women and children die from cooking fires from want of a clean fuel and cook-stove, while ozone-depleting Greenhouse gases like the CFCs threaten the atmosphere itself. About 2 Billion people do not access electricity. A pace of electrification that even at its best would still leave 1.4 Billion people without power by 2030 , let alone other essential utilities like water and cooking gas aggravates the situation.

The corporate sector from the so-called 1st World seems to be ambiguous. On one hand, their powerful lobbying and financial support gives ready bait to administrators in developing countries to buy large power plants and electrify large areas but make them dependant on the vendor-countries for relevant technology, skills, supplies of naptha, liquid natural gas, coke, petroleum or even nuclear fuels, besides endangering the environment with emissions. Or by propagating large projects like dams incorporating heavy hydel generators and centralized irrigation systems that submerge large tracts of land, upset the saline balance in soil and displace thousands of homes to impose a revenue burden on the citizen and a debt burden on the beneficiary nation. When the tailrace waters from these plants are fed used to construct another monstrous thermal plant, these effects are further compounded. On the other hand, 1st-world corporate behemoths are building large wind-mills and mini-hydel plants, which suffice for small village clusters and towns but are in many cases introduced through heavy lobbying, credit finance, export subsidies and connected to feed a centralized grid. Possibly these vendors can argue that developing countries have no other viable buyer than the government or its own power-grid authority.

Hopefully this would be resolved once the cooperative sector and peoples initiative groups become more active and financially strong allies of the corporate sector, instead of being adversaries.

As a thumb rule, electricity is about a third of all energy production, while oil, gas, coal and fissile fuels account for the rest. This proportion is, indeed interestingly, maintained at most national levels. Obviously this reflects the consumption pattern. Yet, specific local energy needs vary according to the breakup of local energy-consuming activity like industry, farming or mining as well as the local households and lifestyles. All this calls for multi-pronged and localized energy solutions, as against any ‘mono-culture’ wherein one energy source meets all needs.

Gender issues are also involved here as are poverty issues. Energy needs extend to cooking and housewarming needs, all of which affect the woman homemaker. Compounding energy costs and poor availability further fuel poverty and force compromises by way of pollutant and inefficient sources of heat, light and motive power.

However, pressure by organizing people and opinions against the ethics of foisting undesirable solutions and dual environmental standards, from the grass-roots to the policy-making levels. Also taking advantage of world-wide gatherings and events, various peoples initiative groups are attempting a dialogue between the perpetrators and its affected nations, resulting in the Carbon Credits and CDM or Clean Development Mechanism to enable the developing world to benefit by financial assistance from the 1st World in their endeavor to deploy ‘clean’ technologies for energy and utility, though a lot more needs to be done in this sphere.

RE systems – solar, wind, hyrdro and biomass - being relatively fuel-independent, environment-friendly besides being adaptable and scalable to a variety of command area scenarios, make a strong, viable and self-helping alternative for people to meet energy supplies. Solar-thermal and photovoltaic solutions have proven fully viable and feasible at the home and local-area level over the years, whereas wind and hydro power technologies have proven their mettle at the wide-area levels. This gives tremendous scope for self-help at the local level. Local persons, with a minimum of guidance and material, can put up simple systems to meet their energy needs. Incentives can also be provided in developing local micro-entrepreneurs to store components and consumables, assemble small systems, supply, and commission, maintain and upgrade them as needed. Investment is flexible to owners’ funds local enterprise or cooperative banking by beneficiary groups, given the scale-flexible nature of these systems.

Relevantly, India’s RE movement makes it a global lesson to the world. Given its origins in the 50s in micro-hydel following the Vickers study for the 1st 5-year Plan, the 60s in bio-gas, the 70s in solar and wind based systems. India is presently home to the 5th largest installed base in MwH terms and home to globally top-ranked manufacturers of solar and wind energy systems. At least one Indian renewable energy entrepreneur has served on the World Bank’s advisory panel on RE as far back as 1980-81. Greenpeace India’s (www.greenpeaceindia.org) publication Power from Renewables- An Indian Success Story and other documents also highlight this.

Meanwhile observes that just like Greenpeace and its affiliated bodies have done in Latin America, Africa and Asia, a number of bodies like the Intermediate Technology Development Group, (www.itdg.org) Light Up the World Foundation (www.lightuptheworld.org) as well as small initiatives including DIY Solar (www.biodesign.org.uk) are involved in providing low-power, low-cost SPV or solar photovoltaic products that have illuminated homes and as effectively, have energized radio and telecom equipment in a number of African and Asian countries. Micro-enterprises have also developed through these efforts.

Likewise one also observes, collaborative efforts of Indian industry and the State Nodal Agencies have seen the success of solar cookers in millions of Indian homes, particularly across the western half of India. Improvement programmes for pump installations and cook-stoves have seen varied success. Solar-thermal air and water heating has been taken up in homes and some process industries, to save several hundreds in MwH of electrical energy that would have been used for geysers and heaters. SPV streetlights and battery-backed invertors for community power supply have been installed in many villages too, along with solar stills (for distilled water to re-fill batteries) after training and motivating local beneficiaries or beneficiary-groups to clean, monitor these systems, report and follow-up servicing and repairs, also under such partnerships.

One further observes that international financial institutions like the World Bank and IDRC have pitched in by way of financial support for a number of projects in RE. Few of these were direct and many more are co-funded or through a local body, like the IREDA in India. However, some of their poverty redresser policies have come under of a cloud of late.

Can all these endeavors not unite into a single, win-win global initiative?