Achieving universal rural energy access in india: A low carbon pathway

India's energy challenges are three pronged: presence of majority energy poor lacking access to modern energy; need for expanding energy system to bridge this access gap as well as to meet the requirements of fast-growing economy; and the desire to partner with global economies in mitigating the threat of climate change. The presence of 364 million people without access to electricity and 726 million relying on biomass for cooking out of a total rural population of 809 million indicate the seriousness of challenge. In this paper, we discuss an innovative approach to address this challenge, which intends to take advantage of recent global developments and untapped capabilities possessed by India. Intention is to use climate change mitigation imperative as a stimulus and adopt a public-private-partnership-driven ‘business model' with innovative institutional, regulatory, financing, and delivery mechanisms. Some of the innovations are: creation of rural energy access authorities within the government system as leadership institutions; establishment of energy access funds to enable transitions from the regime of "investment/fuel subsidies" to "incentive-linked" delivery of energy services; integration of business principles to facilitate affordable and equitable energy sales and carbon trade; and treatment of entrepreneurs as implementation targets. This proposal targets 100% access to modern energy carriers by 2030 through a judicious mix of conventional and biomass energy systems with an investment of US$35 billion over 20 years. The estimated annual cost of universal energy access is about US$9 billion for a GHG mitigation potential of 213Tg CO2e at an abatement cost of US$41/tCO2e. It is a win-win situation for all stakeholders. Households benefit from modern energy carriers at affordable cost; entrepreneurs run profitable energy enterprises; carbon markets have access to CERs; the government has the satisfaction of securing energy access to rural people; and globally, there is a benefit of climate change mitigation.

Assessing impact of material transition and thermal comfort models on embodied and operational energy in vernacular dwellings (India)

Vernacular dwellings are well-suited climate-responsive designs that adopt local materials and skills to support comfortable indoor environments in response to local climatic conditions. These naturally-ventilated passive dwellings have enabled civilizations to sustain even in extreme climatic conditions. The design and physiological resilience of the inhabitants have coevolved to be attuned to local climatic and environmental conditions. Such adaptations have perplexed modern theories in human thermal-comfort that have evolved in the era of electricity and air-conditioned buildings. Vernacular local building elements like rubble walls and mud roofs are given way to burnt brick walls and reinforced cement concrete tin roofs. Over 60% of Indian population is rural, and implications of such transitions on thermal comfort and energy in buildings are crucial to understand. Types of energy use associated with a buildings life cycle include its embodied energy, operational and maintenance energy, demolition and disposal energy. Embodied Energy (EE) represents total energy consumption for construction of building, i.e., embodied energy of building materials, material transportation energy and building construction energy. Embodied energy of building materials forms major contribution to embodied energy in buildings. Operational energy (OE) in buildings mainly contributed by space conditioning and lighting requirements, depends on the climatic conditions of the region and comfort requirements of the building occupants. Less energy intensive natural materials are used for traditional buildings and the EE of traditional buildings is low. Transition in use of materials causes significant impact on embodied energy of vernacular dwellings. Use of manufactured, energy intensive materials like brick, cement, steel, glass etc. contributes to high embodied energy in these dwellings. This paper studies the increase in EE of the dwelling attributed to change in wall materials. Climatic location significantly influences operational energy in dwellings. Buildings located in regions experiencing extreme climatic conditions would require more operational energy to satisfy the heating and cooling energy demands throughout the year. Traditional buildings adopt passive techniques or non-mechanical methods for space conditioning to overcome the vagaries of extreme climatic variations and hence less operational energy. This study assesses operational energy in traditional dwelling with regard to change in wall material and climatic location. OE in the dwellings has been assessed for hot-dry, warm humid and moderate climatic zones. Choice of thermal comfort models is yet another factor which greatly influences operational energy assessment in buildings. The paper adopts two popular thermal-comfort models, viz., ASHRAE comfort standards and TSI by Sharma and Ali to investigate thermal comfort aspects and impact of these comfort models on OE assessment in traditional dwellings. A naturally ventilated vernacular dwelling in Sugganahalli, a village close to Bangalore (India), set in warm - humid climate is considered for present investigations on impact of transition in building materials, change in climatic location and choice of thermal comfort models on energy in buildings. The study includes a rigorous real time monitoring of the thermal performance of the dwelling. Dynamic simulation models validated by measured data have also been adopted to determine the impact of the transition from vernacular to modern material-configurations. Results of the study and appraisal for appropriate thermal comfort standards for computing operational energy has been presented and discussed in this paper. (c) 2014 K.I. Praseeda. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Monitoring urbanization and its implications in a mega city from space: Spatiotemporal patterns and its indicators

Rapid and invasive urbanization has been associated with depletion of natural resources (vegetation and water resources), which in turn deteriorates the landscape structure and conditions in the local environment. Rapid increase in population due to the migration from rural areas is one of the critical issues of the urban growth. Urbanisation in India is drastically changing the land cover and often resulting in the sprawl. The sprawl regions often lack basic amenities such as treated water supply, sanitation, etc. This necessitates regular monitoring and understanding of the rate of urban development in order to ensure the sustenance of natural resources. Urban sprawl is the extent of urbanization which leads to the development of urban forms with the destruction of ecology and natural landforms. The rate of change of land use and extent of urban sprawl can be efficiently visualized and modelled with the help of geo-informatics. The knowledge of urban area, especially the growth magnitude, shape geometry, and spatial pattern is essential to understand the growth and characteristics of urbanization process. Urban pattern, shape and growth can be quantified using spatial metrics. This communication quantifies the urbanisation and associated growth pattern in Delhi. Spatial data of four decades were analysed to understand land over and land use dynamics. Further the region was divided into 4 zones and into circles of 1 km incrementing radius to understand and quantify the local spatial changes. Results of the landscape metrics indicate that the urban center was highly aggregated and the outskirts and the buffer regions were in the verge of aggregating urban patches. Shannon's Entropy index clearly depicted the outgrowth of sprawl areas in different zones of Delhi. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Understanding transitions in a rural Indian building typology in the context of well-being

Rural settlements in Karnataka in India predominantly use locally available resources to build their dwelling units. The houses are constructed either by the villagers themselves or by local masons skilled in traditional architecture. However, traditional houses and lifestyle are slowly giving way to modern concrete dwellings and a new lifestyle. To analyse this trend of transition to modern dwellings in rural settlements, a case study was conducted in three villages near the city of Bengaluru in Karnataka. The present article discusses this transition in the context of sustainable well-being of rural settlements.

Biomass to liquid transportation fuel via Fischer Tropsch synthesis - Technology review and current scenario

Current global energy scenario and the environmental deterioration aspect motivates substituting fossil fuel with a renewable energy resource - especially transport fuel. This paper reviews the current status of trending biomass to liquid (BTL) conversion processes and focuses on the technological developments in Fischer Tropsch (FT) process. FT catalysts in use, and recent understanding of FT kinetics are explored. Liquid fuels produced via FT process from biomass derived syngas promises an attractive, clean, carbon neutral and sustainable energy source for the transportation sector. Performance of the FT process with various catalysts, operating conditions and its influence on the FT products are also presented. Experience from large scale commercial installations of FT plants, primarily utilizing coal based gasifiers, are discussed. Though biomass gasification plants exist for power generation via gas engines with power output of about 2 MWe; there are only a few equivalent sized FT plants for biomass derived syngas. This paper discusses the recent developments in conversion of biomass to liquid (BTL) transportation fuels via FT reaction and worldwide attempts to commercialize this process. All the data presented and analysed here have been consolidated from research experiences at laboratory scale as well as from industrial systems. Economic aspects of BTL are reviewed and compared. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.