Sustainability index: Evaluating performance of energy technologies in rural India
Sustainability index: Evaluating performance of energy technologies in rural India
A recent evaluation of sustainability performance of energy technology systems in rural India reveals that biomass has the highest relative performance followed by hydropower. The sustainability of new and emerging technologies like solar, wind, and their hybrids has improved since 2005.
Original Paper:
Silveira, Semida, and Brijesh Mainali . "Using a sustainability index to assess energy technologies for rural electrification." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (Elsevire) Volume 41 (January 2015): Pages 1351–1365. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.09.018
Providing access to reliable and clean energy for the world's 7 billion people is a challenge, particularly in populous developing countries. India, for instance, has vast renewable energy resources, but selecting an appropriate technology to capture these resources is a major concern. While the Indian government and its donors have improved access to energy technologies in rural India in recent years, most of the energy projects are implemented based on installation targets (number of installations or number of kW installed) rather than sustainability goals. As a result, large subsidy-based rural energy projects defeat the purpose of long-term financial viability and sustainability, with energy projects failing to operate as soon as subsidies stopped .
To help achieve energy access to India's vast rural population through sustainable energy interventions, researchers from Energy and Climate Studies Division, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden evaluated the sustainability performance of energy technologies using advanced statistical analysis. The authors analyzed performance of 10 energy systems across India during 2005, 2010, and 2015.
Sustainability is evaluated using the "Energy Technology Sustainability Index (ETSI)." The ETSI is based on a subjective weighting systemthat assigns scores on the basis of preference and provides a basis to compare different energy technologies. The research study captured technological advancements and alterations in market dynamics of various renewable energy technologies for rural areas as they changed over time. For instance, by 2015 solar technology has become significantly cheaper in the market as compared to 2005.
The ETSI is constructed based on 11 indicators from four domains for each study year in order to identify sustainability performance. The key indicators within each domain are – Technical (energy availability, system conversion efficiency, and reliability), Economic (upfront cost of the technology, operational and maintenance costs, and fuel costs), Environmental indicators (impact on climate change and land use), Social (employment generation and provision of energy for various end uses), and Institutional (required institutional capability). Ten technological options relevant to India were analyzed with consideration of technological development and changes in market conditions. Home-based, off-grid technologies for solar, micro-hydro, and wind were considered. Mini-grid options for micro-hydro, solar PV, wind, solar-wind hybrid, biogas, biomass gasifier, and diesel generator sets were also considered.The major advantage of the sustainability index is that its mathematical result is easy to understand, facilitating its use for decision-making.
The results showed that mini-grid biomass gasifiers, biogas, and micro-hydro technologies have relatively better sustainability performance among rural energy options. The researchers also noted that the sustainability performance of these technologies increased incrementally over the period of study. Other advanced technologies, such as solar and wind mini grid, show improvement in sustainability performance but have difficulty competing with well-established technologies in rural India. Meanwhile, they found that the sustainability performance of the diesel generator is decreasing.
The analysis showed that energy availability, reliability, capital investment cost, operation and maintenance, compatibility of the technology for different end uses, and operational and management capacity are the most important factors when defining the sustainability of energy technologies. Though a relative index, ETSI is a useful decision-making tool for policy makers which considers technical, economic, environmental, social, and institutional matters in an easy to understand manner.
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