World Future Energy Summit: REEEP outlines low-carbon regulation challenges
Abu Dhabi, 19.01.2010 - REEEP International Secretariat
At the 2010 World Future Energy Summit, REEEP has highlighted several key issues surrounding low-carbon energy regulation in developing Countries.
The fact that world energy demand is expected to increase by 40% between 2007 and 2030, and that acccording to the IEA, 70% of this increase will come in developing countries, makes the topic particularly compelling.
According to Binu Parthan, REEEP's Deputy Director General, developing countries face a particular set of challenges in regulating low-carbon energy. In most countries, the public sector is the major energy player, and there energy reforms are generally incomplete. This is compounded by a lack of human and institutional capacity. And many necessary mechanisms such as net metering and feed-in tariffs are not in place. Generally, the grid infrastructure is not "smart" enough.
Off-grid solutions, the best hope for the 1.46 billion people estimated to have no energy access in 2008, are hampered by the fact that regulation focusses heavily on on-grid, electricity regulation.
The four-day WFES summit, which is taking place in Abu Dhabi, was therefore an excellent opportunity to highlight REEEP's efforts in overcoming exactly these types of regulatory challenges:
- the SERN knowledge management and exchange network for regulators
- the REEEP-funded Electricity Governance Initiative project under way in India, South Africa, Brazil with World Resources Institute
- projects looking at off-grid decentralised energy regulation in Ghana and Mozambique, implemented by IT Power
- a Renewable Energy Certificate trading scheme with IREDA in India
- Regulatory instruments in Mexico with CRE
- the inclusion of legal documentation in RETScreen, free software for renewable energy project developers
- support for the Energy Justice network with Colorado University School of Law and TERI
This year's World Future Energy Summit, the fourth of its kind, brings together analysts, executives and politicians from over 100 countries, to focus on the actions necessary to balance the world's economic and social need for massive increases in energy with the urgent environmental demand for low-carbon development. The implications of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December is of course the topic dominating all discussions.
Abu Dhabi is capital of the United Arab Emirates, and a global leader in production of oil and gas. It is now investing heavily to become a regional and international powerhouse in renewable and sustainable energy knowledge, technology and capacity. This effort includes the vast Masdar City development, which promises to be the first zero-carbon, zero-waste city in the world. Masdar City will also host IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency.