Following the devastating 2010 earthquake, much of Haiti’s infrastructure, including its already limited ability to manage its municipal solid waste (MSW), was damaged or destroyed. Due largely to lack of public waste management services and sewage treatment centers, thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands more have suffered through outbreaks of cholera. Haiti needs improved sanitation, and improving and building infrastructure to reliably collect MSW will help achieve this goal.
Improved MSW management can also increase power generation from domestic sources in Haiti, providing some relief from its dependence on imported heavy fuel oil and helping to electrify a country where 75 percent of people do not have access to the grid.
Recent studies show that there is potential for waste-to-energy in Haiti. The metropolitan Port-au-Prince area produces between 1,400 and 1,600 tons of MSW every day. Before the 2010 earthquake, as much as 40 percent of Port-au-Prince’s MSW was collected by waste management services. If the metropolitan area can return to this collection rate and use the MSW as a fuel for power generation, Port-au-Prince could fuel a 5 MW power plant. While this may seem like a marginal addition, it would contribute significantly to Haiti’s power mix considering that the country’s entire operational installed capacity is little more than 100 MW.
Central America is an economically and ecologically diverse region with growing energy needs and unique vulnerabilities to climate change. Boosting investment in renewable energy is a key way that the region can protect its ecologically sensitive areas while achieving reliable access to clean energy for its population. In Central America, the top four renewable energy sources are geothermal, hydroelectricity, biomass, and wind. The relative importance of each renewable resource is different for each country depending on the geographical and geological situation. The Worldwatch Institute has recently begun work aimed at creating a favorable policy and investment environment for renewable energy in Central America.
Globally, the electricity sector is one of the largest and fastest-growing consumers of energy. It is therefore important
The BELCOGEN bagasse plant in Orange Walk, Belize. Photo Credit: Belize News
to consider the role of state and private utility companies in transitioning Central America to renewable energy sources. One of these companies, BELCOGEN, a subsidiary of state owned Belize Electricity Ltd (BEL), has received enormous amounts of attention and praise due to its recent investment in a 31.5 megawatt (MW) biomass power plant fueled by bagasse. BEL invested US$63 million to create BELCOGEN and the bagasse project. The price tag has officially made the deal the largest private investment ever made in Belize. Originally, the project was scheduled to be completed in 2007 and the investment was much lower; however, the necessary investment grew as the scheduled date of completion was postponed, and the project was finally completed in 2009. The plant runs on a combination of 92 percent bagasse and 8 percent heavy fuel oil. BELCOGEN is contractually obligated to sell at least 106 gigawatt-hours (GWh) to BEL for the first year of operation, making the company the source of at least 20 percent of Belize’s national energy demand. The rest of the energy produced (up to 44GWh) will be sold to Belize Sugar Industries Limited (BSI).
Two men install a photovoltaic system in Sri Lanka. (Source: MPRNews)
Kenya’s power grid does not reach the small farming village of Kiptusuri, making it difficult for local farmers to charge their cell phones. Mogotio, the nearest town connected to the grid, has a small cell phone charging store where waits can be as long as three days. One Kiptusuri resident, Sara Ruto, took the initiative to purchase a solar photovoltaic system, providing lighting for her children to study by and allowing her to provide local residents with more reasonably priced cell phone charging services. Sixty-two other families in the village subsequently installed solar power systems, providing electricity to a previously unlit town.
Small-scale distributed renewable energy is also being developed in places such as Nepal, where 80 percent of the population has no access to the national electricity grid. Solar photovoltaic systems are beginning to be employed in clusters in outlying villages, providing power to between 6 and 12 houses each. Micro-hydropower programs have been implemented in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. There are even efforts to use small subterranean chambers designed to convert cow manure into biogas. The United Nations Development Programme has begun focusing on microgrid solutions as the primary method of providing electricity to rural areas. In many cases, microgrids are more economical and, in addition to off-grid technologies, they represent one of the best options for electrifying the most remote areas.
The president of COP 17, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, speaks at the final plenary session of the climate change meetings in Durban, South Africa (Source: Worldwatch).
As the new year begins, climate negotiators have begun to move on from their engagement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. After two weeks of intense negotiations on the future of the international regime to combat climate change, they bring home pieces of an ambiguous mandate—but also some critical steps forward. Below, we discuss some of the outcomes of those exhilarating talks in early December.
Symbolic survival of the Kyoto Protocol
Under European Union leadership, signatories of the Kyoto Protocol agreed to enter a second commitment period for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, extending the treaty terms through 2017 or 2020. This symbolically salvaged the agreement—the only existing climate treaty with internationally binding reduction targets. However, the 27 EU countries, together with Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland, are the only countries to take on these targets, and they agreed to do so only under the condition that all major countries agree to a new, truly global and comprehensive climate treaty, if necessary outside the Kyoto structure.
The 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change begins today in Durban, South Africa (Source: UNFCCC).
This week the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) begins. In Durban, South Africa, delegations from countries around the world will continue negotiating greenhouse gas reductions in order to prevent global warming from spinning out of control. So it is just in time that the International Energy Agency (IEA) releases its latest statistics on global CO2 emissions.
The provided figures contain CO₂ emission source breakdowns by fuel, sector and region over the period 1971 to 2009. According to the data, nearly two thirds of worldwide emissions come from two sectors – electricity and heat generation (41 percent) as well as transport (23 percent). Remaining emissions come from industrial processes (20 percent), residential (6 percent), and a multitude of additional sources (10 percent). Regarding energy, coal is the leading CO₂ emission source, accounting for 43 percent of those emissions, followed by oil at 37 percent and natural gas at 20 percent.
Yesterday, the Worldwatch Institute joined Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (or REN21), and a panel of energy experts to celebrate the launch of Renewables 2011 Global Status Report, an integrated analysis of the state of renewable energy around the world. First published in 2005, REN21’s annual report has since become the most heavily cited analysis of renewable energy business and policy.
According to Alexander Ochs, event moderator and Director of Climate and Energy at the Worldwatch Institute, renewable energy today already accounts for about 25 percent of total global power capacity and 20 percent of actual electricity production, percentages that continue to grow quickly. Over the five-year period from the end of 2005 through 2010, total capacity of many technologies including wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and biomass grew at rates averaging 15 - 50 percent per year. Total global capacity of solar photovoltaics (PV) in 2010 was up as much as 72 percent from just the year before. Little noticed, approximately half of the estimated 194 gigawatts (GW) of new power capacity that was added globally in 2010 were renewables.
The winds of change are blowing in Haiti’s energy sector. President Joseph Martelly identified four priorities for his term: education, employment, environment and rule of law (Education, Emploi, Environnement, Etat de Droit – four “E”s in French). Last month, as the President attended a workshop on energy organized by Rene Jean-Jumeau, the recently nominated Secretary of State for Energy, he added energy as the fifth “E”. He emphasized the impact of the current energy situation on Haiti’s decreasing forest cover as trees are cut for the production of charcoal, and the importance of transitioning to a modern and resource efficient energy supply. President Martelly concluded, “Electricity is needed to develop Haiti’s industry, and cast away the darkness of moonless nights.” This added priority was also reflected in the general policy statement from the Prime Minister Garry Conille on October 11th, where he mentioned the development of alternative sources of energy (notably) and the improvement of the country’s electricity supply as national priorities.
Haiti’s energy sector is marked by very low per/capita energy consumption, a very low electrification rate, a high dependency on fossil fuels with the highest energy intensity in the whole Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, and high supply prices. Haiti’s energy sector is primarily reliant on charcoal, which represents 75 percent of the country’s final energy consumption and, along with fuel wood, often constitutes the only source of energy for households living in rural areas. Intensive use of charcoal has been hugely detrimental to the vegetation cover of Haiti. Over 70 percent of Haiti’s 10 million people live without access to the electricity grid, which has led President Martelly to comment, “in terms of energy, Haiti is still in the Middle Ages.” About 63 percent of electricity generation in the country is based on imported diesel fuel, mainly from Venezuela. Hydropower constitutes 37 percent of the country’s electricity generation. A recent WorldBank/Nexant report identified imported distillate to be the most expensive fossil fuel resource option for Haiti in the future, after LNG and coal, with a forecasted levelized price of US $22.45/GJ over 2014-2028.
Last week I invited Dirk Messner, Director of the German Development Institute (DIE), to Worldwatch for an informal dialogue with the staff. In addition to his leadership of DIE, Dirk is a professor of political science at the University of Duisburg-Essen as well as Vice-Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). As a leading expert in the fields of development policy, environmental policy, and global governance, he plays a vital role in addressing key policy and sustainability challenges, as well as advancing the discourse surrounding climate and energy policy.
Like Worldwatch, Dirk is currently struggling with the question of how to facilitate an effective transition to a green global economy, particularly under the impact of shifting demographics. While transatlantic institutions have traditionally led international cooperative efforts including on the environment, the rapid ascendance of emerging economies like China and India has fundamentally shifted both actual diplomacy and the intellectual dialogue about it (the New York Times just today published an article on the United States’ waning influence on the global economy). Dirk outlined several key areas of inquiry regarding this shift including its implications for sustainability, poverty alleviation, security, and democracy. Several recent developments have contributed to this changing landscape of international development and sustainability efforts.
Global Energy Portfolio Shares by Energy Resource (Source: Renewable Revolution: Low-Carbon Energy by 2030)
On September 20, in remarks at the United Nations (UN) Private Sector Forum in New York, UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro announced the launch of a High-Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All, a body whose aim is to catalyze actions at all levels to achieve three goals by 2030: ensuring universal access to modern energy services, doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Migiro, speaking on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, emphasized the critical role that energy must play in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The High-Level Group, consisting of leaders from business, government, and civil society, will work to design a sustainable energy action agenda in time for the Rio+20 conference in 2012, a year which the UN General Assembly has designated the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. The Sustainable Energy for All Initiative’s goals were first articulated in a summary report of the Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) last year titled Energy for a Sustainable Future.
This week, Xing Fu-Bertaux and Matthew Lucky of Worldwatch’s Climate and Energy team are meeting with senior policymakers and educators in Port-au-Prince at a high-level workshop on Haiti’s energy future. They will be writing an in-depth post about the conference for ReVolt next week. As part of our ongoing work in the Caribbean, Worldwatch is currently focusing on the electricity sector in Haiti and the development of a low-carbon growth strategy.
Haiti has a population of nearly 10 million with a significantly underdeveloped energy infrastructure. Over 70 percent of Haiti’s people have gone without access to the electricity grid for years. The 2010 earthquake further exacerbated Haiti’s infrastructure challenges, leaving over 80 percent of the population without access to electricity and the many vital services that require power. For those Haitians that do have electricity access, service is often intermittent and unreliable.
Presidential Advisor on Energy, Dr. René Jean-Jumeau addresses energy leaders in Port-au-Prince.
Haiti’s current predicament has received ample media exposure since the earthquake. Although international aid and emergency relief programs are providing invaluable support, they are only part of the answer. Haitian leaders are searching for long-term solutions that promote sustainability, growth, and access to electricity. The Haitian Parliament’s recent approval of Garry Conille, President Martelly’s appointment for Prime Minister, has provided a measure of direction for the public sector in pursuit of its development and reconstruction goals. In anticipation of this new government, energy professionals are eager to set Haiti on a sustainable growth trajectory. Earlier this week, Worldwatch researchers Xing Fu-Bertaux and Matthew Lucky joined decision makers from all over the country for a special two-day workshop in Port-au-Prince organized by Dr. René Jean-Jumeau, Presidential Advisor for Energy, to discuss ways in which they can work together to promote the Haitian energy sector. Energy policy, procurement, rural electrification, and sustainability received particular emphasis at the workshop.
Recent studies show that there is potential for waste-to-energy in Haiti. The metropolitan Port-au-Prince area produces between 1,400 and 1,600 tons of MSW every day. Before the 2010 earthquake, as much as 40 percent of Port-au-Prince’s MSW was collected by waste management services. If the metropolitan area can return to this collection rate and use the MSW as a fuel for power generation, Port-au-Prince could fuel a 5 MW power plant. While this may seem like a marginal addition, it would contribute significantly to Haiti’s power mix considering that the country’s entire operational installed capacity is little more than 100 MW.
Yesterday, the Worldwatch Institute joined Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (or REN21), and a panel of energy experts to celebrate the launch of 
