Low carbon energy and energy access in developing countries

With additions on concepts of energy and development and the hydraulic ram pump programme by Frauke Urban.

This chapter addresses the important issue of providing energy to households in developing countries, particularly the rural poor who often have limited access to modern energy services and depend mainly on traditional biomass for cooking and heating. ¹ The chapter introduces the issues surrounding energy poverty and details the link between energy access and development. It provides an outline of the range of energy services and minimum standards that are required to allow people to work themselves out of poverty. The chapter then goes on to outline the three main types of energy delivery models required to sustainably deliver a range of energy services, including well known case studies. While increasing energy access to reduce energy poverty must remain the priority of energy delivery models in developing countries, it can often be achieved through the utilization of low carbon energy resources. As well as resulting in reduced carbon emissions, low carbon energy delivery models have numerous other benefits such as increasing energy security of a country and providing a range of livelihood benefits, particularly in rural areas.