[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″]Of course, getting electricity to urban areas more effectively isn’t the only need in the region. It’s essential to bring electricity to rural Asian areas, too. In Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 600 million people still have no access to electricity, according to the United Nations Development Program.
In Bangladesh, less than 60 per cent of the country is connected, leaving a population twice the size of Canada without electricity. Slowly but surely though, electricity is coming, and developing countries in Asia are expected to account for 56 per cent of global energy use by 2035.
Access to electricity means access to more economic opportunities. When Jack Ma was born in Hangzhou, China, in 1964, most of the country was off the grid but in the midst of an intense program of electrification. By September 2014, his online company, Alibaba Group Holding, had the largest initial public offering in history on the New York Stock Exchange, valued at 228.5 billion USD; it would have been inconceivable in Ma’s childhood given the access and availability of electricity to think that a world tech leader would spring out of China. The link between prosperity and electricity works at a smaller scale as well: a study conducted in rural Bangladesh found that installing photovoltaic solar panels resulted in longer work or study hours for an impressive 100 per cent of respondents. A similar program in Fiji, however, found that without training, the benefits were short-lived; 80 per cent of PV systems weren’t working within three years because of misuse and lack of maintenance.[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”https://energy-exchange.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Asia.jpg” image_width=”800″ image_height=”963″ crop=”false” lightbox=”true” frame_style=”simple” target=”_self” caption_location=”outside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″ desc=”MAP: THOMAS HERBRETEAU/CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][mk_padding_divider size=”25″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]Rather than connecting to an expanding power grid, many first-generation users of electricity in Asia are going the route of decentralized power. It has its benefits: rolling blackouts are no longer a problem, rural communities can get power more easily and reliably, and communities can take advantage of their own local power resources such as wind, solar or small-scale hydropower. The installation and maintenance of decentralized power systems also tends to require a host of small businesses dispersed across the country, nurturing micro-economies in rural areas. More broadly, decentralized power saves on transmission losses and the environmental costs of traditional centralized sources. And the price is coming down. Between 1998 and 2011, the price-per-watt of solar cells fell by half for a residential system in the United States; in Asia, a similar price drop happened in just three years.
Low-cost Chinese manufacturing is partly to thank for driving solar prices down. The process of building a solar panel is composed of both high-tech steps (purifying and slicing silicon ingots) and low-tech steps (assembling them into cells and panels). Eighty per cent of the silicon production is still done in Japan, Germany and the United States, but by importing the silicon wafers and finishing the process, China has built five of the top 10 largest solar companies in the world. Government subsidies have helped: the Chinese government subsidizes the solar industry, causing friction with U.S. competitors as the cheaper units arrive on American shores.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]It isn’t by accident that China has emerged as a world leader in these markets. Choking smog in cities, contaminated farmland and polluted rivers have pushed the government to declare a “war on pollution.” Environmental protests are a regular occurrence, a form of civil disobedience that is permitted even in the strictly controlled country, because with the dreadful environmental conditions they are seen as a pressure release valve to avoid explosive social unrest. The protests are working, too. In many cases, mask-clad smog demonstrators have deterred the government from approving a number of controversial projects, with petrochemical paraxylene plants being of particular concern to the public.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][mk_image src=”https://energy-exchange.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/458406013-copy.jpg” image_width=”800″ image_height=”880″ crop=”false” lightbox=”false” frame_style=”simple” target=”_self” caption_location=”outside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″ title=”Nepal has the highest gas price of any Asian country, so saving fuel by introducing electric versions of gas jeepneys is a priority.” desc=”PHOTO: THINKSTOCK”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″]A dollar of GDP in China is, at the moment, spectacularly inefficient in terms of energy expended to earn it, costing about four times as much as it does in the United States for the same economic output. China’s latest five-year plan, which came into effect in 2011, sought to rectify that inefficiency and its consequences, leaning on clean energy, energy conservation, clean energy vehicles and environmental protection. The country has committed to having 15 per cent of its energy coming from non-fossil fuels by 2020, an ambitious target that will still be met by large hydro projects such as the Three Gorges Dam rather than small energy projects. Despite a number of wind farms being built, connecting them to the grid has been a challenge and nearly 20 per cent of the capacity is thus far unused. Regardless, the country is still the second-largest wind power producer in the world. As for solar, if China reaches its goal of 35 gigawatts by the end of 2015, it will have increased its solar power production tenfold in just three years.[/vc_column_text][mk_button dimension=”three” size=”large” outline_skin=”dark” outline_active_color=”#fff” outline_hover_color=”#333333″ bg_color=”#13bdd2″ text_color=”dark” icon=”moon-next” url=”/powering-change-asia/3/” target=”_self” align=”right” fullwidth=”false” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”15″]Next Button[/mk_button][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]