Energy access, poverty, and development: the governance of small-scale renewable energy in developing Asia

摘要

The recently launched initiative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations toward "Sustainable Energy for AH" has helped refocus policy attention on eliminating energy poverty globally. In tandem, there has been a proliferation of small-scale initiatives to expand access to modern energy for the poor, using both renewable and conventional sources and technologies. However, these new initiatives have, more often than not, neither been documented nor evaluated. This volume provides a collection of ten case studies of contemporary innovative programs undertaken to expand access to modern, renewable energy services for the poor in developing Asia. The documentation of these cases, representing a variety of programmatic approaches undertaken in different socio-cultural contexts, adds to our understanding of issues in decentralized renewable energy provision in rural communities. Of particular relevance and novelty, is the authors' inclusion of case studies that can be deemed both successes and failures. The study of failures is of particular value as there is much to be learnt from them, but often they are neglected. The case study learnings are of importance for informing future efforts to design and implement programs for reducing the unacceptably high rates of energy poverty and scaling up efforts to achieve universal access to modern energy in Asia.