The Clean Development Mechanism, one of the three mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol has been applicable to developing countries and provided financial incentive for their contribution in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. The price of emissions reduction was linked to the market as developed countries that had specific targets to reduce their emission level, purchased the emission reductions. This training manual prepared as a deliverable under ACE project is enclosed as Annexure D. However, with the end of the first commitment period in December 2012, the prices of carbon have become too low to provide economic benefit to projects that mitigate harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
4.5Renewable Energy Plan for Two States
The current policy and legislative environment in India has resulted in rapid and impressive investments in deployment of renewable energy for grid-connect power generation. However, attainment of these targets is heavily dependent on the right implementation enablers and the overall context in which it is implemented. These include, current status of energy access and use, level of awareness amongst community, purchasing power/ willingness to pay, access to finance, resource access, network access and, availability of human resources and local acceptance of renewable energy technology driven interventions. The Renewable Energy Plan for the states of Uttar Pradesh and Odisha –two UNDAF states -has been prepared as a deliverable and is enclosed as Annexure E.
4.6National Strategy for Accelerated Access to Clean Energy
GOI has set ambitious targets to increase the capacity addition of renewable energy. Attainment of these targets depends upon the implementation enablers from stakeholders that include central and state government departments, agencies, regulators and manufacturers. In case of the RETs, like biomass and hydro there are a variety of challenges and barriers to growth. It therefore becomes necessary to identify and address those key constraints directly sooner rather than later.
The impact of few subsidy driven supports and some innovative financing arrangement in renewable energy sector in the past was seen to be limited mainly due to lack of an integrated approach that dealt with all the issues. If technology outreach is improved, organisational and policy support strengthened, institutional financing encouraged, and all these measures are backed up by strategic training and capacity building efforts, renewable energy can make a significant contribution in meeting country’s energy needs. The report on National Strategy prepared as one of the project deliverable and is enclosed as Annexure F. It describes the strategy and recommendations for dealing with the barriers facing the renewable energy sector and help in accelerating its scale up to meet India’s domestic target for clean energy access.