Advancing Energy Efficiency in Developing Countries: Lessons Learned from Low-Income Residential Experiences in Industrialized Countries

Abstract

The potential for energy efficiency to simultaneously address economic development, energy security, and environmental protection in countries around the world is well known. Energy efficiency can have even more pronounced impacts in developing countries, where citizens need increased access to energy, utilities might struggle to keep up with demand, and public and private capital to expand availability of energy and improve quality of service is scarce. Especially among low-income residents, energy efficiency has a host of beneficial attributes that can help achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, including those associated with economic opportunity, improved health, gender equity, and better environmental and climate-related outcomes. Although energy efficiency faces barriers even in the most favorable environments, the time to consider energy-efficiency programs for low-income households might never be stronger. Non-low-income 90,000 2.3 Low-income multifamily (≤80% area median income, 5 or more units) 21,996 5.0 Non-low-income multifamily 71,982

Clean Grid Vision: A U.S. Perspective - Chapter 4. Demand-Side Development

“…Weatherization is an attempt to reduce energy demand from space conditioning by lowering heat loss during colder months and improving cooling performance during hot periods. Weatherization efforts for low-and medium-income households are particularly popular in cold weather climates [17]. Other types of energy efficiency program delivery might rely on home energy audits conducted by the utility to prioritize potential investments to improve energy efficiency and estimate benefits.…”

“…Evaluation: Careful post-evaluation of energy efficiency programs against their intended goals and objectives is a key element of any effort to maximize impact and minimize cost. Effective evaluation is not an afterthought in the supply chain of energy efficiency delivery but an important component of project planning and goal-setting from the start [17]. As energy efficiency is a continuous process, efforts to evaluate, monitor, and verify can help jurisdictions improve program delivery in future phases [24].…”

“…As shown in Figure 4-2, both the energy efficiency programmatic measures and the stakeholders involved can evolve over time to create increasingly sophisticated value chains for energy efficiency that can improve effectiveness and replicability [17]. Although this illustration was created for low-and moderate-income populations, the same mechanisms and stakeholders exist for the larger population.…”

Technology Transfer and Innovation for Low-Carbon Development

“…For technologies with low-carbon energy demand, countries should focus on the demand-pull measures mentioned earlier while fostering a domestic market in energy supply companies. energy efficiency technologies can help address concerns about energy access, security, and environmental protection jointly (Aznar et al 2019). such technologies, however, face strong obstacles to penetration: firms may be unaware of the cost savings potential from adopting such LCTs.…”

“…governments could also create super esCos, which serve as public entities established to help firms realize efficiency gains while also fostering the development of private sector esCos (sarkar and Moin 2018). Joint efforts and partnerships by government, utilities, the private sector, nonprofits, and academia to supply energy efficiency technologies to low-income households can help raise institutional and human capacity (Aznar et al 2019), both of which are especially important for LCT deployment (refer to the earlier section titled "National Capability for LCT Transfer"), and can help support energy access and distributional objectives.…”