Gujarat to be first state to ink MoU with UN energy initiative SE4ALL

Around 25% of the global population without access to electricity live in India

Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), an initiative of the United Nations, will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government, its first with any state in India, during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit to establish a framework of collaboration between SE4ALL and the state government to share best practices, mobilise technical assistance, and how to accelerate energy efficiency initiatives especially in cities, appliances etc.

SE4ALL said that while India is about to launch a massive program of scaling up renewables and Gujarat is one of the front runner states in solar energy. Mohinder Gulati, chief operating officer, SE4ALL explained that the joint collaboration would help catalyse technical assistance to Gujarat to develop sustainable energy pathways and also facilitate the state's collaboration with global institutions in the R&D of renewables.

Gujarat would also join the initiative's Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform established in support of SE4ALL's global target of doubling of the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. Gulati said that already many cities including Paris (France), Lima (Peru), Barcelona (Spain) have signed up for being a part of the Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform. "We are expecting some Indian cities to join the list as well," he said.

SE4ALL, which was launched by UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon in 2012, is also a partner organisation for this year's Vibrant Gujarat Summit. It has set an ambitious target of achieving sustainable energy for all by 2030, for which it has identified three key areas to work upon; universal access, doubling the share of renewables in the energy mix, and doubling the energy efficiency.

"On an average around $350-370 billion are invested globally every year for achieving these three objectives. If the world were to achieve the target by 2030, then an additional $350 billion investment would be required of which around $ 45 billion would go into access deficit. At present, investment in this segment is about $ 9 billion only," Gulati said.

He added that by estimates, in the nearterm, another $ 120 billion could be easily be mobilised. The objectives assume significance in the light of these numbers, around 15 per cent of the global population or around 1 billion people do not have access to electricity, while around 32 per cent of the population or about 2.6 billion people do not have access to any modern cooking fuel. Globally, the rate at which energy efficiency is improving is around 1.3 per cent per year, however, according to Gulati it should improve to 2.6 per cent per year to achieve the 2030 target. Around 25 per cent of the people who do not have access to electricity globally, are in India, or roughly around 250 million people, while another 700 million people in the country do not have any access to modern cooking fuel.