This book showcases how small-scale renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, cookstoves, biogas digesters, microhydro units, and wind turbines are helping Asia respond to a daunting set of energy governance challenges. Using extensive original research this book offers a compendium of the most interesting renewable energy case studies over the last ten years from one of the most diverse regions in the world. Through an in-depth exploration of case studies in Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka, the authors highlight the applicability of different approaches and technologies and illuminates how household and commercial innovations occur (or fail to occur) within particular energy governance regimes. It also, uniquely, explores successful case studies alongside failures or "worst practice" examples that are often just as revealing as those that met their targets. Based on these successes and failures, the book presents twelve salient lessons for policymakers and practitioners wishing to expand energy access and raise standards of living in some of the world's poorest communities. It also develops an innovative framework consisting of 42 distinct factors that explain why some energy development interventions accomplish all of their goals while others languish to achieve any.

This open access book not only describes the challenges of climate disruption, but also presents solutions. The challenges described include air pollution, climate change, extreme weather, and related health impacts that range from heat stress, vector-borne diseases, food and water insecurity and chronic diseases to malnutrition and mental well-being. The influence of humans on climate change has been established through extensive published evidence and reports. However, the connections between climate change, the health of the planet and the impact on human health have not received the same level of attention. Therefore, the global focus on the public health impacts of climate change is a relatively recent area of interest. This focus is timely since scientists have concluded that changes in climate have led to new weather extremes such as floods, storms, heat waves, droughts and fires, in turn leading to more than 600,000 deaths and the displacement of nearly 4 billion people in the last 20 years. Previous work on the health impacts of climate change was limited mostly to epidemiologic approaches and outcomes and focused less on multidisciplinary, multi-faceted collaborations between physical scientists, public health researchers and policy makers. Further, there was little attention paid to faith-based and ethical approaches to the problem. The solutions and actions we explore in this book engage diverse sectors of civil society, faith leadership, and political leadership, all oriented by ethics, advocacy, and policy with a special focus on poor and vulnerable populations. The book highlights areas we think will resonate broadly with the public, faith leaders, researchers and students across disciplines including the humanities, and policy makers.

An acclaimed author and celebrated journalist breaks down the history of electricity and the impact of global energy use on the world and the environment.​ Global demand for power is doubling every two decades, but electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to supply and do so reliably. Today, some three billion people live in places where per-capita electricity use is less than what's used by an average American refrigerator. How we close the colossal gap between the electricity rich and the electricity poor will determine our success in addressing issues like women's rights, inequality, and climate change. In A Question of Power, veteran journalist Robert Bryce tells the human story of electricity, the world's most important form of energy. Through onsite reporting from India, Iceland, Lebanon, Puerto Rico, New York, and Colorado, he shows how our cities, our money--our very lives--depend on reliable flows of electricity. He highlights the factors needed for successful electrification and explains why so many people are still stuck in the dark. With vivid writing and incisive analysis, he powerfully debunks the notion that our energy needs can be met solely with renewables and demonstrates why--if we are serious about addressing climate change--nuclear energy must play a much bigger role. Electricity has fueled a new epoch in the history of civilization. A Question of Power explains how that happened and what it means for our future.

This book provides a platform for scientists and engineers to comprehend the technologies of solar wind hybrid renewable energy systems and their applications. It describes the thermodynamic analysis of wind energy systems, and advanced monitoring, modeling, simulation, and control of wind turbines. Based on recent hybrid technologies considering wind and solar energy systems, this book also covers modeling, design, and optimization of wind solar energy systems in conjunction with grid-connected distribution energy management systems comprising wind photovoltaic (PV) models. In addition, solar thermochemical fuel generation topology and evaluation of PV wind hybrid energy for a small island are also included in this book. Since energy storage plays a vital role in renewable energy systems, another salient part of this book addresses the methodology for sizing hybrid battery-backed power generation systems in off-grid connected locations. Furthermore, the book proposes solutions for sustainable rural development via passive solar housing schemes, and the impacts of renewable energies in general, considering social, economic, and environmental factors. Because this book proposes solutions based on recent challenges in the area of hybrid renewable technologies, it is hoped that it will serve as a useful reference to readers who would like to be acquainted with new strategies of control and advanced technology regarding wind solar hybrid systems

Available evidence suggests that poverty levels in Guatemala are higher than other Central American countries, with data for 2000 showing over half of all Guatemalans (about 6.4 million people) living in poverty, with about 16 per cent classified as living in extreme poverty. This report provides a multi-dimensional analysis of poverty in the country, using both quantitative and qualitative data, as well as examining the impact of government policies and spending on the poor. Policy options and priorities for poverty reduction strategies are identified under the key challenges of building opportunities and assets, reducing vulnerabilities, improving institutions and empowering communities.

Renewable energy plays an important role in contributing to the transition toward low-carbon development growth, in enhancing technology diversification and hedging against fuel price volatility, in strengthening economic growth, and in facilitating access to electricity. The global trends indicate a growing commitment to renewable energy development from developed and developing countries in both the introduction of specific policy levers and investment flows. Developing countries have now a long history of designing and implementing specific policy and regulatory instruments to promote renewable energy. Today, feed-in tariff policies are being implemented in about 25 developing countries and quantity based instruments, most notably auction mechanisms, are increasingly being adopted by upper middle income countries. This paper summarizes the results of a recent review of the emerging experience with the design and implementation of price and quota based instruments to promote renewable energy in a sample of six representative developing countries and transition economies. The paper discusses the importance of a tailor-made approach to policy design and identifies the basic elements that have proven instrumental to policy effectiveness, including adequate tariff levels, long term policy or contractual commitments, mandatory access to the grid and incremental cost pass-through. Ultimately, a low carbon development growth in the developing world depends on the availability of resources to finance the solutions that exhibit incremental costs. Policies introduced to support renewable energy development should be designed and introduced in combination with strategies that clearly identify sources of finance and establish a sustainable incremental cost recovery mechanism (for example, using concessional financial flows from developed countries to leverage private financing, strengthening the performance of utilities and distribution companies, or allowing the partial pass-through of incremental costs to consumer tariffs with a differentiated burden sharing that protects the poor). Without question, policy makers will have to ensure that the design of different policy mechanisms and the policy mix per se deliver renewable energy targets with the lowest possible incremental costs and volume of subsidies.

The book looks at water availability and water demand in various sectors till 2050, presenting a methodology to prioritize options both on the demand and on the supply side, with a special focus on renewable energy desalination.