Green energy the way to go

Delegates from around the world this week descended on Dubai for the third World Energy Forum 2012 in Dubai, with subsequent calls for promotion of clean energy and placing access to energy at the top of the world agenda.The summit comes in the wake of high global energy volatility, supply uncertainties and environmental concerns.More than 1.3 billion people in the world don’t have access to electricity, which calls for significant investments in renewable energy in a bid to provide affordable and reliable electricity.For Africa, energy challenges are even more awful. The continent’s access to electricity is 31 per cent in urban areas and only 12 per cent in rural areas even as 30 per cent of US$257 billion has been invested in the sector.As was stated by President Paul Kagame at the Forum, there is need for a regulatory mechanism to which all nations subscribe to help reduce waste, increase efficiency, cut costs and enable wide access in developing countries, as well as refocusing investment on technologies.This resonates well with the World Bank’s idea that renewable energy and energy efficiency demands concerted action on a number of fronts – policy, legal, regulatory, technical, financial, and risk mitigation.Because government resources alone are inadequate to meet the large investment requirements of scaling up renewable energy services, it calls for public-private partnerships.Despite Rwanda being one of Arica’s fastest growing economies, only 14 per cent of the population has access to electricity. So, the prevailing energy shortage further hampers economic growth.But there is a target of 310 megawatts of production over the next seven years from geothermal energy alone.With an ultimate goal of 1,000 megawatts by 2017, the country is looking to exploit methane gas deposits, solar, biogas and peat.We believe that sustainable development cannot be realised when the environment onto which all activities take place is abused as people continue to indulge in environmental degradation.That is why renewable energy is the way to go.

Opinions

Green energy the way to go