Fourth Assembly of International Renewable Energy Agency and way forward

7 February 2014 06:59 am Views - 3990

The Fourth Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) took place from January 18-19, 2014 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), attended by more than 1200 participants including heads of state and ministers from over 150 countries, as well as representatives from 120 international organisations.  
Sri Lanka was represented by the President and Environment and Renewable Energy Minister. Further, the President who was on a one-day visit in Abu Dhabi also attended the 2014 Zayed Future Energy Prize awards ceremony together with the leaders from the countries within the region and other parts of the world.





A brief history of IRENA
The statute establishing the IRENA was adopted on January 26, 2007 and its purpose is to promote widespread and increased adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy. The IRENA currently has 124 member states including the European Union (EU) with 43 states in the process of becoming members. Preparatory Conferences 1-5 were held between January 2009 and April 2011, following the Founding Conference which took place on January 26, 2009 in Bonn Germany, where 75 countries signed the IRENA statute.

During the above meetings, delegates discussed the next steps for the IRENA, designated Abu Dhabi UAE as the interim headquarters and appointed Adnan Amin (Kenya) as the interim Director General. Delegates also decided that Bonn Germany would be the IRENA’s Innovation and Technology Centre and Vienna Austria would host the IRENA’s liaison office for cooperation with other organisations active in the field of renewable energy. Delegates further addressed issues such as the initial work programme, financial regulations, staff regulations and the budget.

The first Assembly of the IRENA was held from April 4-5, 2011, where the rules of procedure, transitional arrangements, staff and financial matters were addressed and Adnan Amin was elected as the Director General. The assembly included a high-level segment attended by over 50 ministers.

The second Assembly was held form January 14-15, 2012 in Abu Dhabi and the delegates adopted inter alia: work programme and budget for 2012, the secondment of personnel, ethics and conflict of interest and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development. Two ministerial roundtables were also held on the proposed medium-term strategy of the IRENA and the IRENA’s cooperation with the private sector.

The third Assembly of the IRENA took place in Abu Dhabi from January 13-14, 2013 and the delegates adopted the 2013 budget and work plan, along with a medium-term strategy. Members further taking into account the multi-year nature of the IRENA’s activities also endorsed a two-year programming and budgeting cycle. The third assembly also confirmed the IRENA’s commitment to action based on the UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) imitative. Two ministerial roundtables also took place on ‘Financing of Renewables for Development’ and ‘Renewable Energy Costs and Benefits’.






Fourth IRENA Assembly
The secretariat highlighted that the Global Energy Atlas Initiative is an instrument for international cooperation that is available to all and is the largest information node on renewable resource maps. To this end, Sri Lanka should focus the available sites for hydropower, wind, wave, solar, ocean thermal, biomass and bio fuels as such sources of renewable energy will be increasingly important for the technology of choice for developing countries.

2014-15 work programme and budget were presented by the IRENA Director General and emphasized the member support is required to implement an effective, focused and results- oriented work programme and explained that the new work programme focuses on costing measures, new business models, institutional capacity, as well as communication and research.

The Director General highlighted: The Global Energy Renewable Atlas: Remap 230–IRENA’s Global Roadmap to 2030, SE4ALL, the annual publication RE thinking Energy and intentions to work with Abu Dubai Fund for Development (ADFD) were highlighted.









Work programme decisions and IRENA budget
The above include:

• Voluntary contribution resulting from the UAE bid implementation agreement of US $ 14.8 million across the biennium.
• Core budget appropriation of US $ 40 million to cover core activities and administrative costs across the biennium.
• Voluntary contributions from Germany for 5 IRENA Innovation and Technology Centre in Bonn of US $ 9.2 million. The decisions also:

• Requests the Secretary General to work with the council to seek innovative funding options and report on the progress made at the  fifth session of the assembly and
• Invites members, signatories, states in accession and other potential members to provide additional voluntary contributions.
• Requests the Director General to establish cooperative arrangements with bilateral, multilateral and international initiatives to jointly implement elements of the work programme.
• Authorizes the Director General to make transfers between appropriation between sub-programmes with the limit of 15 percent of the amount appropriated or the sub programmes or the sub programme in general.
• Maintain streaming renewable energy options and strategies in energy plans.
• Making renewable energy knowledge accessible to all.
• Regional cooperation on increasing deployment of renewables to meet global energy demands.

Report from ministerial roundtable
The first part of the ministerial roundtable on the theme ‘Renewables Extending the Frontier’ and the second part addressed ‘Regional Initiatives for Scaling Up Investment In Renewable Power’.

• Renewables Extending the Frontier - The IRENA emphasized the role of science, technology and innovation to stimulate the expansion of renewable energy while increasing competitiveness and creating a business case to increase the use of renewable energy.
• Regional Initiatives For Scaling Up Investment In Renewable Power - The second part of the roundtable focused on regional initiatives. Africa reported on the initiatives on opportunities to develop renewable energy sources in Africa stating challenges can be overcome by regional cooperation. Association of Countries in West Africa (ACWA Power) highlighted a ‘compelling case  for renewable energy’ in the Middle East and North Africa corridor countries, explaining that during daylight hours, electricity produced from oil at market price costs 22-23 cents per kilowatt hour(kW/hr), while solar amounts on lee to 18.9 cents per kW/h.

IRENA’s Global Roadmap to 2030
The Secretariat presented ‘RE Map 2030-IRENA’s Global Roadmap to 2030’, which considers pathways for doubling of global share of renewable energy by 2030, technology options and opportunities for international cooperation and identified an 18 percent share in 2013 as the starting point saying business as usual would lead to 21 percent in 2030.

The secretariat underscored the transition to renewable energy to less expensive than continuing on non-renewable energy achieving and highlighted other benefits including achieving 2 degree centigrade climate target, creating 3.5 million on new jobs and producing other socio-economic benefits such as improved trade balance between energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The secretariat presented the new ‘Renewable Energy and Jobs’ report and noted that in 2012 approximately 5.7 million people were employed in the renewable energy sector worldwide and highlighted estimates that by 2030, 9.5 million jobs could exist in the renewable energy sector and could go up to 16.7 million if the share of renewable energy is doubled by 2030.





Conclusions and recommendations
Sri Lanka has given high priority to developing renewable energy to replace as far as practical and economically   conventional non-renewable energy such as oil, coal and natural gas.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Sri Lanka, presently functioning under the Environment and Renewable Energy Ministry, is striving to promote hydro, wind, solar and biomass as sources of renewable energy on a national policy and strategies formulated in 2009 when this authority was under the Power and Energy Ministry. The energy mix as projected up to 2015 is hydro including mini plants as 28 percent, from oil 8 percent and coal 54 percent and minimum from non-conventional renewable energy as 10 percent.

The government has also recognized the need to elevate biomass as both a commercial crop as well as the third fuel option for electricity generation and has accordingly declared Gliridecidia Seplum as the fourth plantation crop after tea, rubber and cocoanut. It was also planned to develop bio fuels as an important constituent of the transport energy to cover 20 percent of the total requirement by 2032.

Further, there was a recent announcement by the Science and Technology Ministry that plans are underway to set up a pilot plant to generate nuclear energy.
Accordingly, a new long-term national policy for an energy mix is required so that there will not be any duplication of efforts by these ministries and relevant state agencies. Further, private sector cooperation is also of paramount importance to achieve a higher proportion of non-conventional energy so as to prevent global warming and to keep emissions of CO2 and other gases under 2 percent.

 (Dulip Jayawardena, a retired Economic Affairs Officer United Nations ESCAP, can be reached at <fasttrack@eol.lk)