The World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, has allocated $110 million to Kenya to finance increased production of geothermal power.

The World Bank released a statement commenting, “MIGA has increased its coverage against the risks of transfer restriction, expropriation, and war and civil disturbance to cover an additional equity investment of $110 million for phase three of the project,” Nairobi’s Business Daily reported.

The geothermal plant, scheduled for completion in two years’ time, is intended to support Kenya’s economic recovery and reduce the country’s dependency on current hydroelectric power generation projects. Given the country’s current energy shortfalls, Kenya Power is presently rationing its 90 megawatt daily output in a program that is constraining the country’s industries.

The World Bank’s MIGA agency has insured OrPower 4 Inc’s Olkaria III power plant for the past decade, which became the first private geothermal power plant in sub-Saharan Africa in 2000. Ormat Holding Corporation President, Mr Yehudit Bronicki said, “MIGA’s continued participation in the project is critical. With its involvement, the political risk profile of the project is much lower.”

In a press release MIGA noted, “An increase in indigenous geothermal generation will guarantee a more reliable supply of energy while also reducing carbon emissions.”

Article by Charles Kennedy, appearing courtesy OilPrice.com.

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The number of homes and shops equipped with solar power systems in rural Bangladesh doubled in the last year to more than 870,000 with the help of funding from the World Bank and other organizations, according to a World Bank report.

In 2009, the World Bank provided $130 million to support government initiatives to reach remote parts of Bangladesh that would otherwise not be connected to the national grid. Fewer than half the people in Bangladesh have access to electricity.

“With a small [solar] connection one can power four lamps and one black and white television set,” said Ruhul Quddus of Rural Services Foundation, a Bangladeshi charity that installs solar units.

For Bangladesh, which already faces 2,000 megawatts of electricity shortages, finding new sources of power will become increasingly critical as population growth, industrialization, and a rise in the use of electrical appliances adds another 500 megawatts of demand annually.

In another new report, the U.S.-based advisory firm KPMG LLP predicts that India, Asia’s third-largest energy consumer, may be able to produce electricity from solar power as cheaply as from coal by 2017.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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The World Bank is planning to limit its funding for coal-fired power plants to the world’s poorest nations, bowing to pressure from environmental groups and governments that have criticized the bank’s record on funding fossil fuel projects, according to published reports.

Under proposed new regulations, the World Bank would provide loans or grants for coal plants only in “the very poorest countries,” and only if the applicants have shown that the plants are necessary and that alternative solutions, including renewable energy projects, are not feasible, according to the Guardian.

The proposed changes come a year after the World Bank gave a controversial $4 billion loan to a South African company to build one of the world’s largest coal plants. While the new rules would also favor increased investment in renewable energy, critics called the proposal inadequate.

The rules would allow the bank to spend as much money as ever on fossil fuels and “condemn” poor countries to a high-carbon future, said Alison Doig of the nonprofit group, Christian Aid.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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The World Bank’s lending for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects increased by 300 percent between fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2010, to a record $3.4 billion.  But over that same period, lending to fossil fuel projects also jumped 430 percent.

Recent loans for coal-fired power plants is evidence to the fact that the World Bank is still in the business of loaning money for massive construction projects with the most favorable cost-benefit ratio — with benefits measured almost entirely in terms of economic benefits.

“[The World Bank] is constantly stalling on one very important policy: calculating the greenhouse-gas emissions produced by its own projects,” said Janet Redman, co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies. “In its actions, the World Bank has deviated from its rhetoric,” Redman said.

World Bank loans for fossil fuel projects topped $6.3 billion in the fiscal year ending in June, $4.4 billion of which was for the construction of new coal-fired power plants, according to the Bank Information Center, a Washington-based watchdog group.

One project in particular, the 4,800-megawatt Medupi Station in South Africa and will emit about 26 million tons of carbon dioxide annually until roughly 2050. Together with another World Bank project, India’s Tata Ultra Mega plant, set to go online in 2012, the two projects will emit 50 million tons of carbon dioxide annually — roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions of the country of Ireland.

But World Bank officials say 2010 was an unusual year for the bank in terms of loans for fossil fuel projects because in previous years, spending for renewables had outpaced traditional coal-fired generation.

And heavy criticism for the $3.75 billion loan for the South African Medupi Station — criticism that included a protest from the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Italy in the form of abstaining to vote on the approval of the loan — has led the World Bank to take steps to present the institution as pro-renewables, including the hiring of an internationally-renowned clean energy expert to help shape strategy.

In September, the World Bank announced that Daniel Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley would be the bank’s first chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency. Kammen is as serious as anyone about developing clean technologies of the future, but he’s also a pragmatist.

Kammen says project worthiness should not be measured by carbon emissions alone and that a broad World Bank energy lending portfolio would likely include fossil fuels for the immediate future. “No institution should be fixated on a single metric,” Prof. Kammen recently told The New York Times. “Things that are expensive from a carbon point of view might have a very high social value,” he said.

But a recent internal audit by the Independent Evaluation Group says the World Bank is not sufficiently weighing the long term impacts of energy projects.

The World Bank “and the world at large need to learn faster what works and what doesn’t and focus on results, not just dollars committed,” Kenneth Chomitz, the report’s author, said in a press release.

The independent evaluation recommended the bank help clients “find domestically preferable alternatives to coal power,” saying coal “should be a last resort.”

The bank is currently conducting an energy strategy review in 2010 in hopes of reconciling its mandate of alleviating poverty with the problems and environmental costs associated with traditional coal-fired power projects.

As that process goes forward, World Bank officials say there are currently no plans on the books to finance a new coal-fired power plant.

Article by Timothy B. Hurst, appearing courtesy Celsias.

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A study by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang of the World Bank looked at the relative importance of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses from oil, natural gas, and coal compared to the life cycle and supply chain emissions of domesticated animals raised for food. They conclude that greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food account for 51% of annual emissions caused by humans and should be given higher priority in global efforts to fight climate change.

While livestock are already known to contribute to GHG emissions, their levels have been underestimated or simply overlooked, former and current World Bank environmental experts Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang.

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Last week I went to the World Bank’s Energy Week in DC.  It was an exciting event in which the World Bank hosted “energy and finance industry executives, senior donor and developing country government officials, stakeholders and leading-edge thinkers of the energy sector”.  Seminars discussed energy efficiency, rural electrification, alternative energy resources, and climate change.  The Global Energy Assessment was an interesting topic discussed by US renewable energy trade organization and private sector.  If you’ve been paying attention to renewable energy there was nothing new, except the passion to engage the emerging markets. 

•    Solar PV construction is fast, uses established technology for low risk project development and is highly dependent on project financing.
•    Subsidies distort market
•    BioMass is highly risky and often needs to be balanced against the impact on the environment and food

However, a new bit of info was China considering or enacting a “feed in tariff” to spur renewable energy development.  It seems that many countries are looking into the incentive plans that feed in tariffs offer in spurring renewable energy. Without a monetary reason countries that are behind the curve for energy and have a lot of capacity for pollution need to realize that renewable energy can establish energy capacity quickly in the same way cell phones now cover most of Africa rather than landlines.  Some of the things I’ve been investigating with regards to projects in emerging markets is combing the carbon credit appetite for projects focused on Re in say Tanzania or Kenya. It can help to get some of the project development to the next level of negotiations.  Climate change was a hot topic at this conference, with both sides of the table offering compelling thoughts.  Climate change is a worldwide problem which doesn’t respect borders or differentiate between polluters and non-polluters and lack of energy prevents economic development and keeps people poor among the strongest positions.

The Rural Energy Access seminar discussed the biggest pollutants among the poor as being biomass stove cooking.  Haiti is the classic example of biomass usage gone wrong.  Nearly 90% of Haiti is lost to deforestation.  To compare, nearly 90% of Tanzanian’s uses bio-mass to cook with, but re-growth is quick, and biological coverage extensive.  dissigno’s project in Tanzania focuses on kerosene lanterns as a source of indoor air pollution.  We can’t really address cooking, because it’s a sector in itself.  At least most of the cooking I saw in Tanzania was done in another area or room, away from the family area.  But I imagine that the woman cooking inhales quite a bit of particulate and smoke while making meals.

Based on this I attended a seminar and demonstration on cook stoves. The technology spans improved stoves made from locally available materials such as those created by a Grameen Shakti enterprise to a German company making efficient stoves and importing them to Africa for sale.  Gramen Shakti’s model is impressive.  Not only do they have the backing of the Grameen Bank’s network (impressive to say the least), but they use local vendors, local materials and enable the local community to gain value from the supply chain, manufacturing and service.  To me it seems ideal.  However, I’m sure the German stove will give it a run for their money.  Their stoves appeal to the middle class as an aspirational product. The issues however, is that these improvements deal with efficient use of the same bio-mass material.  I didn’t see any programs that address an investigation in renewable energy cook options.

More about electrification and micro finance tomorrow.

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