Asia Pacific PartnershipThe Asia-Pacific Partnership (APP) on Clean Development and Climate is an innovative new effort to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies. The Partnership will advance U.S. goals of enhancing energy security, reducing harmful air pollution, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions intensity in the context of sustained economic growth. Founding partners Australia, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the United States have agreed to work together and with private sector partners to meet goals for energy security, national air pollution reduction, and climate change in ways that promote sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. The APP focuses on expanding investment and trade in cleaner energy technologies, and goods and services in key market sectors.  The APP Partners have approved eight public-private sector task forces covering:

1. cleaner use of fossil energy;
2. renewable energy and distributed generation;
3. power generation and transmission;
4. steel;
5. aluminum;
6. cement;
7. coal mining; and
8. buildings and appliances.

The initiative also involves sharing experience in areas including workplace safety.One of the APP projects is to promoting clean energy options in the electricity supply and demand sector in India for the Asia-Pacific Partnership. It is part of the power generation and transmission task force. The Indian economy has grown rapidly over the past decade with a commensurate growth in the demand for energy services that is increasing the country's vulnerability to energy supply disruptions.  In the electricity sector, the supply shortage is 10-12% nationwide. With support from USAID, LBNL conducted an analysis in the state of Maharashtra [1] that concluded that demand and supply side energy efficiency (EE) improvements could completely alleviate the state's electricity shortage, increase industrial output, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  As a result, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) ordered public and private utilities in the state to undertake demand side management (DSM) initiatives.  However, the implementation of these measures is substantially below the targeted levels, primarily due to limited capabilities of various entities engaged in the supply chain of providing energy efficiency services. These include energy efficient equipment manufacturers; energy service companies (ESCOs), energy saving monitoring and evaluation agencies, and financiers in the energy industry in addition to utility companies, regulatory commissions, and consumers. The objective of this project is to use lessons learned from the U.S., including the state of California, to explore approaches to overcome institutional, regulatory, and procedural barriers to promote EE in the Indian electricity market. The project will begin in the state of Maharashtra since it seeks assistance on the most productive ways to utilize public benefits charge funds. Our approach will be to provide technical assistance and training for electricity regulatory commissions, public and private utility companies, consumers, and industries that manufacture energy efficient equipment using the proposed MOU between MERC, CEC, CPUC, and LBNL as a starting point to initiate activities in five key areas that are categorized in two subgroups. Those two subgroups being:

• Capacity building for targeting power sector investments in appropriate supply and
• Capacity building for designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating demand-side management programs (DSM).

Presentations

• A Blueprint for Improving Energy Efficiency in India
• Partnerships for Clean Development and Climate: Technology and Other Benefits

[1] Phadke A., Sathaye J. and Padmanabhan S. (2005) Economic benefits of Reducing Maharashtra's electricity shortage through end-use efficiency improvement. LBNL-57053