Asia Solar Energy Initiative

The common use of solar energy and other cleaner energy technologies is key to combating climate change while sustaining global economic growth. Previously, the high cost of solar generation restricted its advancement to developed economies. Today, the new and emerging markets of Asia and the Pacific offer exceptional expansion opportunities---a rapidly increasing energy demand from a large and growing population, good solar irradiation, and enough patches of otherwise unusable land. The Asia Solar Energy Initiative of the Asian Development Bank aims at developing 3,000 megawatts of solar power and associated smart grid projects in Asia and the Pacific within 3 years. This initiative features three interlinked components on knowledge management, project development, and innovative financing that are intended to accelerate solar energy's progress toward grid parity.

The Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative is the global effort rallying action towards a transformation in the energy sector by the year 2030. With targets to increase energy use, expand energy efficiency, and ensure energy access for all, SE4All's priorities are tied closely to the challenges of developing Asia and the Pacific, which is confronting issues of energy sustainability, security, and widespread energy poverty. In the interest of combining efforts and resources to meet the challenge, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific have partnered to act as the leading organizations for the SE4All Regional Hub for Asia and the Pacific. Together, they are supporting actions among developing countries in the region that will put them on track to transform their energy sectors, in line with SE4All. This report summarizes the initial activities of the Regional Hub, and contextualizes the challenges in Asia and the Pacific with the global efforts to reach the 2030 targets.

Drawing on the Asian Development Bank's experience installing the rooftop solar photovoltaic system at its headquarters, the Handbook for Rooftop Solar Development in Asia hopes to demystify the process of developing solar photovoltaic projects in urban areas. The handbook provides detailed descriptions and guidance for all stages of development, including initial prefeasibility assessment, design, financing, procurement, and operations and maintenance. The Asian Development Bank hopes that entities looking to take advantage of the benefits of solar photovoltaic systems would find the development process made transparent and streamlined, and that this handbook would encourage the spread of solar photovoltaic systems in cities throughout developing Asia and the Pacific.

This book covers critical debates on policies, markets and emerging issues that shape renewable energy transition in the Asian region, which is fast becoming an epicenter of the global energy consumption. The chapters focus on domestic policies, geopolitics, technology landscape and governance structure pertaining to the development of renewable energy in different Asian countries ranging from China to the Middle East. The book presents an insightful view of the pace and magnitude of the energy transition. It presents critical steps countries are taking to promote affordable and clean energy (SDG 7) as well as strengthening climate mitigation actions (SDG 13). In addition, this book introduces the concept of co-innovation---a collaborative and iterative approach to jointly innovate, manufacture and scale up low-carbon technologies---and its role in promoting energy transition in Asia. Chapter 8 (Renewable energy deployment to stimulate energy transition in the Gulf Cooperation Council) is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This publication offers a snapshot of Asia's energy sources and how they are used, and presents recent developments and challenges that emphasize the urgency and necessity of sustainable energy initiatives. It features 15 recent noteworthy projects as case stories (contexts, solutions, results, and lessons) that were implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Philippines, and Uzbekistan in the areas of energy efficiency, solar energy, geothermal, waste-to-energy, advanced coal technology, and electricity interconnection.

This book examines clean energy financing and approaches in hydropower and demand-side energy efficiency projects. It presents policies and strategies on energy, based on the experiences in South Asia. This is the second of two volumes that reviews tried and tested approaches and instruments in scaling up clean energy development in Asia and the Pacific.