The Energy for All Team from the Asia Development Bank (ADB) participated in the Clean Cooking Forum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia last month and is encouraging the piloting of off-grid renewable energy systems. The Forum highlighted the market-based approach to the global adoption of clean cooking solutions, continuing to drive innovations in research, market development, standards and testing, project finance and policy development. Meanwhile, Philips announced that it has developed the world’s most efficient “warm white” LED lamp which has the potential to reduce worldwide energy consumption by more than 7%. Read more

A World Record for Energy-Efficient Lighting

By Melissa C. Lott in Scientific American (13 April 2013):

Philips announced that it has developed the world’s most efficient “warm white” LED lamp. Designed to replace the fluorescent tube lighting that is ubiquitous in offices and industrial facilities, the new TLED (tube-style light emitting diode) has the potential to reduce worldwide energy consumption by more than 7%.

Innovation in the LED lighting industry is generally measured in terms of two categories – cost reductions and efficiency improvements. The former is reflected in the final price tag. The latter is measured in terms of “lumens per watt,” describing the amount of visible light that a source emits at a certain rate of energy consumption.

According to a Philips, their new prototype tube lighting produces 200 lumens per watt (200 lm/W). And it is expected to cost only slightly more than the equivalent strip lighting set-up (at 100 lm/W). Traditional bulbs only produce 15 lm/W.

But, the arguably more significant accomplishment with Philip’s new TLED is that it produces warm white (~2700K) light, the type of light prehat most people prefer for indoor lighting. An easy way to increase the efficiency of a bulb design is to increase the color temperature. So, the fact that Phillips managed to keep the temperature in this lower range, while still hitting the 200 lm/W rating, is even more impressive.

Globally, building lighting represents 15-19% of total energy consumption and florescent tube lighting accounts for more than half of the lighting market. In the context of Thursday’s announcement – if Philips’s new bulb makes it to market by the summer of 2015, it will have the potential to reduce worldwide energy use by more than 7%.

Source: www.blogs.scientificamerican.com

Energy for All participates in Global Cooking Forum

ADB reports (8 April 2013):

The Energy for All Team participated in the Clean Cooking Forum, March 18-22 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The goal of the Forum was to further a market-based approach to the global adoption of clean cooking solutions, and to continue to drive innovations in research, market development, standards and testing, project finance, and policy development.

ADB and Energy for All supported the event and presented during various sessions at the forum. On 19 March, Jiwan Acharya presented ADB’s carbon market programme in the session “Leveraging Carbon Finance in a Down-market; Trends, Threats and New Opportunities”.

The session highlighted the current down-turn of the carbon prices which leads to reluctance of many organizations to take on the high monitoring and validation costs for carbon credits. The session concluded that although the reluctance, carbon market remains a funding opportunity in the long-run and risk reduction mechanisms exist that diversify the risk for the individual organization through bundling of projects by carbon vendor organizations, like Energy for All partner Nexus.

Sununtar Setboonsarng, Principal Natural Resources and Agriculture Economist, moderated the session on “What’s cooking in Southeast Asia” on 19 March. The speakers presented the business models and technologies in the countries of Lao PDR, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and Timor-Leste. It was highlighted that the need for financing capacity building activities and the availability of public sector support – in the areas of provision of testing/standards, financing and creating a enabling policy environment – remain the major challenges in up-scaling the cookstove sector.

On March 20, Jiwan Acharya presented in the session “Household energy access: a critical link to sustainable development” ADB’s view in addressing the issue of household energy and the importance of linking household energy programmes to productive uses.

As a member of the Sustainable Energy for All (S4ALL) practitioner’s network, ADB also joined the workshop on March 17-19, which was part of the pre-forum events of the Global Cooking Forum. Practitioner’s came together to discuss current issues energy access practitioners around the world are facing to move forward on the Sustainable Energy for All agenda.

Eric Sidgwick, Country Director of ADB’s Cambodia Resident Mission gave brief opening remarks acknowledging the importance of energy access for least developed countries as Cambodia and highlighted ADB’s efforts in Cambodia, especially in grid extension, building the capacity of relevant government bodies and testing and piloting off-grid renewable energy systems. In the session on “Towards Sustainable Energy for All”, Jiwan Acharya presented Energy for All’s contribution to the United Nations Secretary General’s Initiative.

Source: www.cleancooking2013.org