CLEAN launched to expand energy acesss to 300 million people in India

Building on pioneering efforts by clean energy practitioners to expand access to affordable and reliable energy solutions for India’s "last mile" – which includes over 300 million people who have not been reached by the national grid and do not have access to electricity – a broad alliance formed by 12 key stakeholders in the decentralized energy access sector in India announced the launch of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN) in New Delhi.

Of the 1.2 billion people without access to electricity globally, one-third are in India. Another 800 million people in India don’t have access to modern cooking solutions. Through the collective experience and innovation of its alliance members, CLEAN will work to expand access to affordable and reliable energy services by systematically addressing the barriers that the decentralized clean energy sector in India currently faces, supporting the global vision of the United Nations-led Sustainable Energy For All initiative to achieve universal access to modern energy by 2030. This initiative aims to achieve three interlinked objectives by 2030:

• Ensuring universal access to modern energy services;
• Doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and
• Doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

“We believe that the Clean Energy Access Network is a critical effort to support India’s decentralized clean energy sector in delivering the benefits of sustainable development to some 300 million people across India, in support of the UN's global energy access goals. The Network’s activities will help to accelerate the delivery of modern energy services and support improvements in health care, education and economic empowerment that come with access to clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy solutions,” said Richenda Van Leeuwen, Executive Director, Energy Access, United Nations Foundation. The UN Foundation’s Energy Access Practitioner Network, along with 11 other organizations, is a founding partner of CLEAN.

As an influential body for the decentralized clean energy sector in India, CLEAN will represent and advocate on behalf of the sector to important public and private stakeholders, particularly the government at the central and state levels. Among the highlights of its launch activities on April 8 is a dialogue with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in New Delhi on finance and policy issues surrounding renewable energy for off-grid household and community electrification. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is the central government body responsible for renewable energy in India. The Secretary of the MNRE, Mr Upendra Tripathy, will grace the official launch of CLEAN where he will talk about his ideas for the off-grid renewable energy sector and take the audience through some major initiatives and experiences of MNRE. Eminent practitioners working in the space of off-grid biomass and solar energy will discuss broad sectoral issues and challenges related to policy-making and access to finance; two strategy reports commissioned by CLEAN to outline the roadmap for these issues will also be launched.   

CLEAN aims to address four challenges that are specific to the decentralized clean energy sector in India at present – issues around the policy and regulatory environment, limited financial access for both end users and enterprises, dearth of skilled capacity across various levels of competence, and technology standardization for clean energy products and services.

CLEAN will provide the following core services to social enterprises and other organizations in the decentralized clean energy sector in India:

• Facilitate critical information, learning and networking opportunities for its membership and the wider sector.
• Support innovative technology while developing universal quality and certification standards.
• Provide guidelines for skills, training and capacity building across the ecosystem.
• Engage with policy makers at all levels of government.
• Increase access to finance for practitioners and consumers alike.

CLEAN will expand its membership to represent a wide spectrum of social enterprises across a range of technologies and scales of operation – from those specializing in the sale of household renewable energy systems to enterprises that focus on the installation of community-level mini-grids.

The founding signatories to the network are:

1.Ashden India Collective

2.Council on Energy, Environment and Water

3.GIZ India

4.Indian Renewable Energy Federation

5.SELCO Foundation

6.Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation

7.Small Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund

8.The Climate Group

9.The Energy and Resources Institute

10.The Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation

11.United Nations Foundation Energy Access Practitioner Network

12.World Wide Fund for Nature - India