Renewable Energy for Unleashing Sustainable Development

This book is intended as a contribution towards a more inclusive sustainable future. It conceptualizes energy as a central element of development and renewable as a key condition for sustainable development. By describing the technical, economic and policy conditions that are necessary for the successful deployment of renewable energy, it provides recommendations for unleashing, in developing regions, a sustainable development based on more equitable distribution of resources. The need to provide universal energy access to reduce poverty while preserving the environment and limiting climate change requires a new paradigm in the way energy is produced, distributed and used. Decentralized renewable energy systems based on sound technical solutions, solid business models and enabling policies, need to be deployed. Energy is needed to satisfy basic living needs and to give access to public services that are relevant to human and social development. Energy also represents also an income opportunity for people as it enables new productive activities and thus triggers socio-economic development. Distributed renewable energy can and should become the first option for achieving universal energy access since it has proven to be in several cases the most cost-effective and affordable option. Energy is a cross cutting enabler that should be integrated into wider social, economic and environmental policies. From this perspective, the book provides a comprehensive multi objective and multi criteria analysis that goes beyond the often shortsighted and simplistic financial analysis, with the aim to represent a step towards the achievement of innovative solutions. A wide panorama of the contribution of renewable energy to sustainable development is presented in four of the five parts of the book, that readers might read separately, as each one stands on its own and tells a distinctive part of the story. The fifth part gives space to specific experiences coming from different stakeholders quite active in the field of access to energy. The book brings together several authors from different parts of the world and professional backgrounds ranging from private sector to academia, international organizations, NGOs and governments to give a comprehensive view of the role of renewable energy in ensuring sustainable development. It is also builts on the long experience of the three editors in education and in the promotion and implementation of renewable energy projects in developing countries.