Towards Sustainable Energy Services for Households and Small Businesses

Towards sustainable energy services for households and small businesses – barriers and recommendations

Daily energy services are more important than local environmental effects (deforestation). Global climate change is irrelevant.

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BARRIERS

A barrier refers to the presence of an obstacle of physical, financial, cultural, sociological or political character. Factors which are blocking, complicating or delaying the desired development of energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy technologies (RET) limit the development of renewable energy resources unless special measures are enacted to overcome the barriers. We have processed and present the barriers in various ways, to highlight the complexity and to give the reader several entry points to the total material. - In chapter 3.1 the barriers are arranged by stakeholder group - Based on this table and sources like development aid representatives, business and literature, we have made a more general description of the various categories of barriers. - A mind map that shows the causal links between the barriers (Not included in the printed versions doe to technical limitations). - Table 2 (chapter 4) shows the most important barriers that the various stakeholder groups have to overcome.

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Access to information and practical examples for households - Lack of trained personnel in efficiency (stove construction etc) and new technologies. - Little understandable information (local advisors, video, radio/TV, education).

Few local entrepreneurs, energy shops, service suppliers, skilled workers.

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High transportation cost.

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Attractiveness and priority of the offered solutions -

Energy for households has low priority (in family and society). Gender issue. Benefits for women – low priority for male decision makers. Missing empowerment / training for women. Traditions /cultural barriers, food taste best cooked on char coal, local culture, use patterns and design elements. Mental pictures of development different? Offered solutions different from what is seen on TV.

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3.1

Barriers arranged by stakeholder group

The barriers below are indentified through the interviews with the nine environmental NGOs.

Cost and finance are important barriers for some solutions - User not familiar with up-front investment, as needed for Energy efficiency and renewable energy.

3.1.1

Barriers for and with end users

Awareness of the problem and potential - Energy alone is not considered a

Size of the cost / investment too high - lack of financial instruments. Modern commercial energy/equipment is subject to tax (unlike char coal etc).

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primary problem for the respondents. However, the focus for households and small businesses seem to be on the problems it is causing (health, food, environment, time consumption etc). Most end users seem to only recognise the problems linked to access to the energy carrier (electricity, wood, gas, liquid fuel) and are not aware of the source and end use efficiency. Hard to imagine that energy efficiency and renewable energy has a big potential. Smoke from inefficient wood burning is not linked to health problems.

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3.1.2

Barriers for promotion (NGOs)

Awareness of the problem and potential - Many NGOs do not see lack of

energy/unsustainable use of energy as a problem, only what it is causing. Energy is often seen as a difficult, technical, high level issue for specialists. Hard to imagine the big combined potential of Energy efficiency and renewable energy.

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