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Renewable energy technologies, such as hydro (large and
mini), solar, geothermal, wind and tidal can deliver power with virtually
zero emissions. Distributed generation (including landfill waste
methane-based generation) also has the potential to significantly reduce
emissions and promote greater cost and network efficiencies. The wide
scale deployment of renewable energy and distributed generation
technologies increases the diversity of energy supply, and can contribute
to improving energy security and reducing fuel risks, particularly in
remote and fringe-of-grid areas. These energy sources and distributed
generation technologies, which are ideally suited to mid-sized and smaller
scale applications can also assist in alleviating poverty by improving
access to energy services, as well as increasing job opportunities and
improving air quality and public health.
The emerging nature of many renewable energy technologies means that there
can be market and technical impediments to their uptake, such as
cost-competitiveness, awareness of technology options, intermittency and
the need for electricity storage. Work is currently being undertaken by
many members of the Partnership to address these barriers to increase the
wide-scale uptake of renewable energy. However, advances in technology
design, system planning and grid operations are demonstrating the
financial viability of distributed utility applications. In addition,
alternative fuels, such as biodiesel and ethanol, also can potentially
offer significant environmental benefits in the future. Similarly these
alternatives are also on the pathway to becoming cost-competitive and for
deployment on a large-scale. The Task Force will focus on the most
promising technologies and applications, particularly rural, remote and
peri-urban applications, where renewable energy and distributed generation
applications can be cost competitive.
Objectives
- Facilitate the
demonstration and deployment of renewable energy and distributed
generation technologies in Partnership countries.
- Identify
country development needs and the opportunities to deploy renewable
energy and distributed generation technologies, systems and practices,
and the enabling environments needed to support wide-spread deployment,
including in rural, remote and peri-urban applications.
- Enumerate
financial and engineering benefits of distributed energy systems that
contribute to the economic development and climate goals of the
Partnership.
- Promote further
collaboration between Partnership members on research, development and
implementation of renewable energy technologies including supporting
measures such as renewable resource identification, wind forecasting and
energy storage technologies.
- Support
cooperative projects to deploy renewable and distributed generation
technologies to support rural and peri-urban economic development and poverty alleviation.
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Identify
potential projects that would enable Partners to assess the
applicability of renewable energy and distributed generation to their
specific requirements.
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