Renewable energy, especially for electricity generation, has been growing at a fast pace with global renewable power capacity addition reaching two-thirds of total generation capacity added in 2018. Renewable power has become competitive with fossil fuel in many countries but renewables still face a variety of barriers to achieve their full potential. The barriers vary across countries/regions and include economic, […]

Investments in renewable energy are increasing rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa. An interesting trend to note is the rapid increase and likely future growth of Chinese involvement in large-scale renewable-energy infrastructure projects. Our focus in this chapter is to determine the extent of co-benefits created when renewable-energy projects are developed by Chinese investors. For this, we undertake an in-depth micro-level analysis […]

This paper introduces the studies and experience learned in district cooling project development in developed countries and adaptation process in India for city-level rapid assessment. There are five pilot Indian cities chosen to go through all the process of rapid assessment so as to outline the barriers, challenges, and potential to develop high energy-efficient district cooling system. The paper also […]

Broad acceptance by and support from the society for the sustainable energy transition is indispensable. Public participation and ownership – in particular through collective action initiatives – is seen as a means to foster this support. Starting with the origin of the cooperative model, we present how it has been evolving until today. We then discuss how energy CAIs are […]

The overall objective of this contribution is to investigate Collective Action Initiatives (CAIs) in the energy sector (e.g. energy communities, cooperatives and purchasing groups) as a trigger for the implementation of a strong sustainability paradigm. The assumption is that the active involvement of citizens in the energy chain is a crucial requirement when considering the diverse dimensions of sustainability and […]

This chapter describes the findings and recommendations of rapid assessment on regulation and policy in India to integrate district energy under UNEP’’s District Energy in Cities Initiative. The district energy systems, including district heating and cooling systems, have been considered a cost-effective way to increase energy efficiency and reduce air pollution at the city level. The initiative started its demonstration […]