Energy Efficiency Key to Achieve Sustainable Energy Goals

April 2, 2012

Where energy, water and food are all under strain as global demand for them increases, energy efficiency must be improved to expand access to electricity, and do it sustainably.

That was the message delivered by Kandeh Yumkella, co-chair of the High-Level Group leading the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, to experts at the Fifth EE Global, an annual conference on energy efficiency March 28.

Yumkella, also Secretary-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization, underscored the need to double the rate of gain in energy efficiency by 2030, one of three goals of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. The other two are achieving universal access to electricity and clean household fuels, and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

With rapid economic growth in Asia and Latin America propelling three billion people into the middle class in coming years, Yumkella said, energy efficiency is essential. Gains can be achieved, he added, by behavior changes in every household, industry and business, as well as efforts to build markets for energy efficiency.

Among the latter, he highlighted the market potential in reducing the 5.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas flared every year in association with oil production, which produces about 400 million tons of CO2 emissions. The World Bank manages a Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, which supports countries and companies seeking progress on this front.

EE message reinforced by World Bank

Yumkella’s points were reinforced and complemented by Vijay Iyer, Director of the World Bank’s Sustainable Energy department, who spoke on the same plenary panel at the EE Global meeting in Orlando, Florida.

He said the Bank and other international financial institutions are working to encourage governments to enact policy incentives that help foster markets for energy efficiency, while also seeking new tools to provide finance.

“We — the international financial institutions — need to facilitate private sector investment by mitigating risk in countries where investors are uncertain,” he said. To achieve this, Iyer noted that the Bank is supporting projects, many blended with innovative climate finance instruments, to encourage local domestic banks to lend to companies and governments wanting to make investments in energy efficiency.

World Bank preparing EE ‘community of practice’

Also attending the conference was Ashok Sarkar, Senior Energy Specialist, who is coordinating an initiative to help launch a Community of Practice on energy efficiency.

“This community of practice aims to bring together those who are creating new knowledge on energy efficiency with those who can use it,” Sarkar said. “We want to establish stronger, more effective synergies among groups working within and outside the Bank on the many dimensions of energy efficiency—finance, policy, markets, and technologies, to name a few.”

In preparation for development of an online knowledge portal, an online survey was launched to identify partners who could become members of this Community of Practice and the themes that it needs to address to help the Community.

The Bank also hosted a pre-conference workshop at the EE Global on improving energy efficiency as a means to help expand electricity access in developing countries. Speakers presented case studies of work on both demand and supply-side efforts in Bangladesh, Mali, Senegal, and South Africa, as well as the United States.