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Rockefeller Smart Power India Media Monitoring 7/31/17
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Q&A: Rockefeller's Ashvin Dayal on Inclusive Growth
Jul 18, 2017 | Devex
By Abigail Seiff
As you know, Ashvin participated in a Q&A with Devex -- he mentioned Smart Power as a program that can show there is a "different way to achieve universal electrification". -
Indian Delegation to the American West Discusses Renewable Energy
Jul 24, 2017 | Huffington Post
By Olive Eisdorfer
Contributed piece that outlines US-India partnerships to address energy issues. -
Explainer: India, Global Warming and the Paris Accord
Jul 20, 2017 | Triple Pundit
By Darshan Goswami
Contributed piece from a renewable energy expert outlining how India needs a new climate and energy policy to reach its Paris Accord commitment, noting micro grids as an area the country should aggressively invest in. -
Utility Helps Wean Vermonters From the Electric Grid
Jul 29, 2017 | The New York Times
By Diane Cardwell
Green Mountain Power is turning homes, neighborhoods, and towns in Vermont into virtual power plants -- an experiment driven by both economic and environmental goals. -
Gaps in the Electric Grid Aside, African Economies are on the Rise
Jul 31, 2017 | Forbes
By Linda Currey Post
A paid Forbes BrandVoice piece by Oracle, focusing on the New Deal on Energy for Africa, a partnership that aspires to bring electricity to the continent's most remote areas. The article highlights Access Power -- a developer, owner and operator of power plants in energy and frontier markets. -
Financing the SDGs: Innovative Solutions for the Funding Gaps
Jul 18, 2017 | Devex
By Devex Editor
This article outlines content from a Twitter chat Devex hosted as part of its "Going for Goals" content series in which major global development and private sector organizations discuss innovative financing models' need to achieve SDGs, including Omar Campos, Senior Director of Funding Partnerships, Philips; Angela Marcarino, Head of Asia and Pacific, European Investment Bank; Albena Melin, Head of Global Engagements, Blended Finance & Partnerships, International Finance Corporation; and Roberto Ridolfi, Director, Planet & Prosperity, EuropeAid. -
World Needs $94 Trillion Spent on Infrastructure by 2040 -- Report
Jul 27, 2017 | CNBC - Reuters
By Simon Jessop and Jane Merriman
Features statistics on needs for global spending on infrastructure from the Global Infrastructure Hub; potentially includes statistics we can use in other materials. -
Al Gore Returns with an Ever-More Inconvenient Truth
Jul 31, 2017 | Scientific American
By Annie Sneed
Not particularly connected to SPRD, however the article notes that the sequel to An Inconveneint Truth "casts India as the antagonist," so we may see related coverage as the film is released widely in August. Reporter Annie Sneed is the associate editor for environment and energy at Scientific American -- we have added her to our master global media list.
Global News
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Q&A: Rockefeller's Ashvin Dayal on Inclusive Growth
Jul 18, 2017 | Devex
By Abigail Seiff
In late 2013, the Asian Development Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation launched the Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund. Since then, the $160 million fund — supported by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland — has helped mitigate the effects of climate change in cities across Asia.
Funding goes to programs that range from preventing erosion in Hội An, Vietnam, to waste management and urban planning in Mandalay, Myanmar, to lessening the impact of flooding in Sahiwahl, Pakistan — all with the aim of mitigating the impacts of climate change within some of the most vulnerable cities on earth.
Projects such as the UCCRTF are key to ensuring inclusive development, says Ashvin Dayal, associate vice president, managing director, Asia at the Rockefeller Foundation.
“The idea there was to set up a facility that allowed us to develop large infrastructure projects. But to do that with resilience of communities and of places in mind,” he told Devex in an interview.
Dayal believes there is increasingly room for complementarity — ways in which large infrastructure development can be built in a manner that helps the poorest communities. Devex talk to him about inclusive development and how to make economic growth reach the last mile. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can large-scale infrastructure development and inclusive development go hand in hand? Or do we need a new model of growth and development?
I think that they can go hand in hand. The key is how do you make sure that the large infrastructure projects that are being implemented by the bank or anyone else are complimentary with communities who are perhaps less able to use those infrastructures. Are they complementary to their needs? So what we talk a lot about is how do you combine infrastructure with decentralized small infrastructure.
To give you an example: In the energy field that we do a lot of work in, we know that governments and development banks have to invest heavily in the grid infrastructure to expand the grid to provide more electrification through the grid. But we also know that if we’re going to reach the last mile, we’re going to have to have a different kind of decentralized service that can get to the poorest communities who aren’t going to be able to connect to the grid for maybe five, 10, or 15 years in some cases.
So I think when infrastructure is planned with those complementarities in mind then absolutely it is a driver for economic growth. The issue is that we want more than just growth. We want equity, we want inclusion, we want stability, we want access and participation for all communities, and that’s where I think some of the big infrastructure projects of the past have maybe fallen short.
Tell me about the UCCTRF and the impact it has.
The idea was to set up a facility that allowed us to develop large infrastructure projects, but to do that with resilience of communities and of places in mind. The facility has about $150 million that provides project development funding and grant funding to ADB country teams to do more of that up-front planning when they’re developing that urban infrastructure. That lets them make sure that their project is resilient and that it’s inclusive. Say you’re doing a water infrastructure or a transport infrastructure project — the fund allows it to be designed with these issues in mind. It’s been a really powerful partnership. It took a long time to get it going, but it’s been extremely beneficial to communities that those projects are being implemented in.
How does that partnership work?
We’re talking about small project development grant funding. The ADB, at the end of the day, is making very large infrastructure loans. So they’re bringing in big finance. So it’s that complementarity that works really well. They do two things. One is they host the facility, they manage the facility, they manage the funds and what they do is they link these small grants which are these planning grants to the development of the bigger loans that are going to be coming down the pipeline.
So they may be doing a $500 million transportation loan in a city in Asia. The question is: Can we use a couple million at the start to design it differently, to be more resilient, to think more about how low income communities are going to benefit from that, to think about how it might be able to provide more protection to vulnerable communities? When you put those two things together — the big finance for infrastructure with that upfront project planning you actually get much more inclusive and resilient outcomes as a result.
Why cities?
If you think about it, the world is now predominantly urban, and it’s where we’re going to see the largest growth of population in the next 20 to 30 years. We’re going to see something like 75 percent of the world being urban by 2050. At the same time, these cities are growing very fast in a context of greater volatility. If you just look at climate, the kinds of shocks and stresses the cities are facing today are so different than even 20 years ago. You have so many coastal cities in Asia that face the risk coming from cyclones, typhoons, flooding, etc., and that’s setting back a lot of the development gains that these places have made. So we believe that now is the time for cities to really be the focus of where we invest in resilience, because there’s so much to lose there. That’s where you got the most people, the most economic assets and the most sort of human impact that could be felt over the decades ahead.
Apart from the UCCRTF, what are some other complementary initiatives that Rockefeller is working on?
About three years ago our board approved something called the Smart Power for Rural Development Initiative. It’s really aimed at creating more access for electrification for rural communities. Globally, there are about 1.3 billion people who don’t have access to reliable electricity. And in 2017, that’s really outrageous if you think about it. Part of the reason why, is it’s very difficult to extend the grid infrastructure in a conventional way to every remote village or hamlet in places like North India or parts of Africa, where you have the real concentrations. So we found with the price of solar technology coming down and new business models around decentralized mini-grids, that there’s a new opportunity to bridge this gap.
We launched this effort in 2014, with a goal to develop 1000 minigrids, and electrify 1000 villages. But the real goal of that is to show there is a different way to achieve universal electrification. So we’re working very closely with governments, but we’re also bringing in companies and NGOs who need to then work on engaging with the communities to test and develop and scale up this new model. We’ve got about 115 minigrids in India and we’re starting to explore what we can do in East Africa as well as other places such as Myanmar.
https://www.devex.com/news/q-a-rockefeller-s-ashvin-dayal-on-inclusive-growth-90640
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Indian Delegation to the American West Discusses Renewable Energy
Jul 24, 2017 | Huffington Post
By Olive Eisdorfer
Amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Power for All initiative, five Indian energy executives traveled to the United States in May to research renewable energy and implementation. The delegation visited the Electronic Reliability Council of Texas, Xcel Energy, PacifiCorp, and Portland General Electric, as well as the public utility commissions of California and Oregon. According to the United States Energy Association — which arranged the trip — this specific delegation’s research focused on the organizational challenges of connecting renewables to large-scale power grids, such as renewable energy variance forecasting, grid balancing, and scheduling.
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The hosting of this delegation was a continuation of USAID’s Greening the Grid initiative under the agency’s US-India flagship program: Partnership to Advance Clean Energy. Established to assist in Modi’s goal of providing power to all Indians while maintaining India’s environmental commitments in the Paris Accords, Greening the Grid emphasizes “facilitating exchanges between US and Indian regulators, grid operators, and utilities” in addition to supporting analytical modeling and six grid integration pilot programs in India. These in-person exchanges are particularly important in areas like grid management, wherein regulators must find a delicate equilibrium between using intermittent renewable power sources, like wind and solar energy, and ensuring a constant supply of electricity for citizens.
Given Modi’s ambitious plans to build 175 gigawatts of installed renewable capacity by 2022, eco-conscious American utility and government representatives recognized the gravity of this initiative. “It was a great opportunity to share best practices and consider what actions we have taken that would be beneficial to India during their transition” said Lisa Hardie, Oregon Public Utility Commission Chair. As the Power for All initiative continues to progress, US-Indian engagement can help provide answers to some of energy development’s toughest issues.
Meanwhile, US-Indian partnerships are also expanding in the commercial sector along the West Coast. Just days before the beginning of the delegation, the US-India Business Council hosted their Annual West Coast Summit in Menlo Park, CA to discuss technology exports. The rising bilateral trade between the two countries, totaling $115 billion in 2016, shows not just a commitment between governments, but between US and Indian businesses as well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indian-delegation-to-the-american-west-discusses-renewable_us_59761ac3e4b0545a5c310206
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Explainer: India, Global Warming and the Paris Accord
Jul 20, 2017 | Triple Pundit
By Darshan Goswami
India needs a bold new climate and energy policy. To get there, the nation will need a new set of social and technical knowledge, transformational thinking, new policy tools, and major legislation. Here are several steps to move the country toward its Paris Accord commitment to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity [a measure of the global warming impact of the economy] by 33-to-35 percent, relative to 2005 levels, by 2030.
1. Introduce a carbon tax: Capturing carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and planting trees could help slow and eventually reverse global warming trends.
2. Rapidly increase the deployment of renewable energy: Aggressively expand large-scale deployment of both centralized and distributed renewable energy— including solar, wind, hydro, biomass, and geothermal— to ease the strain on the present transmission and distribution system and reach more off-grid populations. Provide incentives to kickstart renewable energy programs for massive solar rooftops.
3. Develop national renewable energy (RE) policy – Enact and deploy a comprehensive new energy roadmap with innovative RE policies. In addition, set national RE standards — such as 20 percent by 2020, 40 percent by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050 — to create demand, new industries and innovation, and a new wave of green jobs.
4. Electrify transportation – Expedite a move to electrify transportation by encouraging expanded use of electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrids, and deployment of solar-powered EV charging stations around the country. Develop and implement time-of-day pricing to encourage charging of vehicles at night and other times when peak demand is low. Adopt nationwide charging of electric cars from solar panels on roofs and solar-powered EV charging stations around the country. In addition, launch the public transportation system of the future with “zero-emission” battery-powered electric buses (like China is doing in their country) in all major cities to reduce air pollution, reverse climate change and global warming. India must make a massive shift that will lead to widespread adoption of EVs in the next five to seven years.
5. Energy efficiency: Promote energy efficiency in the economy, notably in industry, transportation, buildings and appliances. Make energy efficiency a high priority by expediting the development and implementation of cost-effective energy efficiency standards. To reduce the long-term demand for energy, engage states, industrial companies, utilities and other stakeholders to accelerate energy efficiency investments such as large-scale nationwide use of LED lamps.
6. Utility-scale projects – Phase out conventional energy subsidies, and develop a long-term plan to replace fossil fuel with utility-scale renewable generation. We can no longer ignore the effect of pollution and climate change on the health of our citizens.
7. Renewable innovative financing solution: Provide innovative financing (e.g., tax-free solar bonds or green infrastructure bonds) to instill more confidence from potential investors and decrease the cost of financing for renewable energy projects. Create and fund a national smart infrastructure bank to accelerate local demand for renewable energy.
8. Decentralized energy – Avoid future fossil fuel investments in India and instead emphasize nationwide deployment of community scale solar projects and micro-grids with storage. India’s present 40GW solar target should be extended to include photovoltaic panels on the rooftop of every home in India, generating enough power to reduce the country’s massive dependence on fossil fuels.
9. Micro-grids: Aggressively invest in a smart, two-way grid (and micro-grids). Invest in smart meters, as well as reliable networks that can accommodate the two-way flow of electricity.
10. Solar roadways – India should also take advantage of the vast, network of roads across India and the sun that beats down on them and turn them into energy-creating solar super highways. The idea of solar panel roads is to replace traditional asphalt roads with glass-based “solar panels that you can drive on” in a bid to turn roads into sources of renewable energy.
11. Develop energy storage: Including thermal, grid battery storage (e.g., Tesla Powerwallhome battery backup), compressed air/gas, vehicles-to-grid/home, pumped hydro, fuel cells or hydrogen, flywheels, superconducting magnets and super capacitors. Develop a “hydrogen economy” plan. Recent innovations in hydrogen generation, storage, transport and use could transform it into the ultimate source of clean energy.
12. Transform India into a global solar manufacturing hub: Establish R&D facilities within academia, research institutions, industry, government and private entities to guide technology development.
India has the technical potential to meet its current power needs more than 10 times over with solar energy alone. There are no insurmountable technological or economic barriers to tapping India’s vast potential to achieve 100 percent renewable energy. India can easily build a 100-percent renewable energy system at costs comparable to or less than what it would have to spend to continue its reliance on fossil and nuclear power. There is no downside to this transition. India can become the world leader and superpower in renewable energy, and eliminate pollution-related suffering of millions of people.
Darshan Goswami has more than 40 years of experience in the energy field. He worked as a project manager for renewable energy, micro-grid and smart grid projects at the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in Pittsburgh. Earlier, he was a Chief of Renewable Energy (Head) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C. Mr. Goswami is a registered professional electrical engineer with a passion and commitment to promote, develop and deploy renewable energy resources and the hydrogen economy. In dedication to his life serving humanity and poor people, the author supports: India Foundation for Children Education and Care, Inc. (http://www.ifcare.org/).
http://www.triplepundit.com/2017/07/actions-needed-reverse-climate-change-global-warming-india/
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Utility Helps Wean Vermonters From the Electric Grid
Jul 29, 2017 | The New York Times
By Diane Cardwell
In a new low-income development that replaced a trailer park here, rooftop solar panels sparkle in the sun while backup batteries quietly hum away in utility closets.
About an hour away, in Rutland, homes and businesses along a once-distressed corridor are installing the latest in energy-saving equipment, including special insulation and heat pumps.
And throughout Vermont, customers are signing up for a new program that will allow them to power their homes while entirely disconnected from the grid.
The projects are part of a bold experiment aimed at turning homes, neighborhoods and towns into virtual power plants, able to reduce the amount of energy they draw from the central electric system. But behind them are not green energy advocates or proponents of living off the land. Instead, it’s the local electric company, Green Mountain Power.
Even as the Trump administration has broken with almost all the world’s nations by renouncing the Paris climate accord, the Vermont program offers just one example of the continuing efforts at the local level to rethink a largely carbon-based power system. The initiatives are driven by financial advantages as well as environmental ones.
Green Mountain’s chief executive, Mary Powell, sees the program here as the best way to please customers while making the system more environmentally and physically sustainable.
“Customers, especially in Vermont with the energy-independence values that people have, want to move more toward self-generation,” she said, seated in a bright orange Modernist chair in a meeting area in the company’s open-plan headquarters near Burlington.
“The opportunity for us,” she added, is to lead the transformation of an electric system that depends on power sent along big transmission lines “to a community-, home- and business-based energy system.”
As a practical matter, the less electricity the utility pulls from the regional transmission system, especially at times of peak demand, the less it has to pay in fees, producing savings it can pass on to customers. One way it does this is by remotely controlling the batteries installed through its programs, drawing upon the stored energy as needed.
Recently, Ms. Powell said, Green Mountain used this method to take the low-income development here off the grid’s electricity supply for two hours, saving an estimated $275 in transmission costs while the homes were powered by solar panels or battery storage. The amount saved was small, but such savings could add up over a year if they were realized in enough locations.
The utility, owned by Gaz Métro, a leading natural gas distributor in Quebec, is also working to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions as part of the effort to slow global warming. In 2014, it became a B Corporation. That is a voluntary designation, requiring executives to take into account not just how decisions will affect profit and shareholders, but also how they will affect the public, generally defined as society or the environment.
As part of that mission, Green Mountain became the first utility to offer customers access to Tesla’s Powerwall home battery system when it was released in 2015. Now it is starting a new program, announced in May, that will offer the battery to as many as 2,000 customers for $15 a month over 10 years, or a one-time payment of $1,500. The package will include software and a Nest thermostat, which conserves electricity by adjusting temperatures to comings and goings as well as established routines.
The idea is that customers, especially when they have solar panels, heat pumps and electric vehicles, will be better able to monitor and manage their energy use. The utility, using Tesla’s software, will be able to call upon the stored energy in the combined batteries to help meet surges in demand, or to sell it on the wholesale market to help balance or smooth out fluctuations within the region.
The efforts have won plaudits from national green-energy advocates who see the utility as a leader in helping redesign the electric system, which is undergoing enormous changes as renewable sources of energy become more popular and other technologies give customers more control. Many utilities see such moves as an existential threat because their profits come mainly from getting a set rate of return that is factored into customer rates.
But Green Mountain Power has “figured out a way to do well and do good in the utility business and keep its regulators, investors and customers all happy at the same time,” said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford and a customer of the utility through a family home in Vermont. “That’s a big deal these days when the rest of the industry is talking about a death spiral.”
Ms. Powell, 56, grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and attended a public high school focused on the arts. She came to the company in 1998 after turning down the job three times. She just couldn’t see herself working for a utility, she said, especially one whose traditional corporate culture was visible in the imposing stone lobby and slate steps that led to the chief executive’s office, hidden behind two private secretaries and outfitted with its own bathroom and shower.
The family on her father’s side — he was an actor and a model for the fisherman on Gorton’s seafood packages — had roots in the state, so she had grown up spending summers there. (Her brother, Michael Powell, is a sports columnist at The New York Times.) After college, she became a technical writer for a money-market fund in New York, working her way up to associate director of operations over the next seven years.
She grew disenchanted with working in finance, so when a house-sitting opportunity in Vermont came up, she and her fiancé quit their jobs and headed north. She figured she would work as a waitress, she said, but ended up taking jobs at a couple of banks and starting a few businesses — including one selling reflective gear for dogs that her husband now runs — that ultimately led to her joining the utility.
First, she tackled the company culture, moving executives from the boxy glass headquarters to the 1980s brick service center, where she works at a stand-up desk in a cluster including other executives as well as the linemen. The office, decorated with reclaimed wood, bright colors and relics of past electric systems, looks more suited to a Silicon Valley start-up than to a typical corporate utility, complete with a treadmill and table-tennis setup in one section and a cluster of fledgling entrepreneurs, winners of an incubator competition, in another.
Then she began trying to make the generating system greener, which led to the move toward a more decentralized system, something few other utilities have tried with such enthusiasm. But in an industry known for caution, Green Mountain can be nimble, in part because it is so small — just 265,000 customers — and has a relatively receptive customer base.
A program that helps provide energy-efficiency upgrades in Rutland, for instance, got its start with a single call. At a weekly leadership team meeting, Ms. Powell asked executives to find a way to bring several technologies together in one dwelling.
One executive asked Rutland’s mayor if he knew of a family that would be willing to serve as a guinea pig. He suggested Mark and Sara Borkowski, whose century-old house became the first of 161 homes and businesses to take part. Under the program, the utility provides financing for energy upgrades, which participants can pay back over time through their monthly bills.
Green Mountain has still invested in large-scale renewable-power plants, like the Stafford Hill Solar Farm — 11 acres of solar panels and battery banks spread over a landfill behind a town dump — and two wind farms. Those developments have come in for criticism from some residents and officials who object to living near noisy industrial machines and worry about marring the natural beauty that draws residents and visitors to the state. The critics include Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican who opposes putting wind turbines along mountain ridges.
But many customers say they are happy to be part of greening the area’s energy supply, whether for the financial savings, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming, or just to make sure the lights stay on in a power failure.
“It’s not really any different than being anywhere else,” said Alexis LaBerge, 27, who was one of the first to move into the low-income development in Waltham from an old house that guzzled fuel to keep the house and hot water heated.
Now, when the power from the grid goes out, as it did one night this spring, she does not have to worry about food spoiling in the refrigerator. “It’s definitely nice being brand-new and having the backup,” she said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/business/energy-environment/vermont-green-mountain-power-grid.html
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Gaps in the Electric Grid Aside, African Economies are on the Rise
Jul 31, 2017 | Forbes
By Linda Currey Post
The African Development Bank Group recently wrapped up its 2017 annual meeting in Ahmedabad, India, with an optimistic assessment of the country’s progress made in improving agriculture and ending hunger and poverty.
The group also noted its funding of the New Deal on Energy for Africa, a far-reaching partnership that aspires to bring electricity to the continent’s most remote areas by 2025.
It will be a big job. An astonishing 1.5 billion people—more than one-fifth of the world’s population—do not have any access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. Another billion live with unpredictable electrical service.
While the African Development Bank Group has committed to investing US$12 billion in electrical projects during the next four years and will leverage an expected US$45–US$50 billion in cofinancing for power plants, the group lamented the lack of bankable projects in the pipeline.
That’s where Access Power comes in. The company is a fast-growing developer, owner, and operator of power plants in emerging and frontier markets. Access Power is developing power projects worth more than US$1 billion in 23 countries across Africa and Asia.
Why has the company embraced this critical yet very challenging mission? Because “sustainable power is the future,” said Umair Junaid, Access Power’s head of accounting and control.
“Children in schools need light to study; doctors in hospitals need to monitor patients’ vital signs. And all people need regular access to information but they don’t have the electricity to run TVs or laptops,” he said.
By generating sustainable power, Access Power can make the necessities of modern life possible, from clean drinking water and sanitation, to the production of food and a safe way to cook it, to transportation and telecommunication.
“Providing electricity for households and local businesses is the key to alleviating poverty and reducing wealth inequality,” Junaid said.
Harnessing Renewable Energy from Africa to Asia
Access Power’s first project, a solar farm in the rural village of Soroti in Uganda, generates 10 megawatts of power and is the largest solar power plant in east Africa.
In addition to creating jobs for local people who build and run the power plants, the company, through its Access Foundation, is providing additional support to residents living near its Soroti solar facility. For example, the foundation gave solar lanterns to children attending the Opuyo primary school so they can light their homes, and distributed 2,000 orange, mango, and pine tree seedlings to residents of the Alaki and Omuron villages.
Access Power will soon begin building two more solar farms in the Benban region of Egypt. The area offers large stretches of open land and abundant sunshine, ideal for solar plants, each of which will contribute 63 megawatts of clean and reliable electricity to the local power grid.
The company is also engaged in long-term studies of the wind patterns across selected areas of Africa and Asia to determine if the air currents are strong enough to support electricity-generating wind turbines.
Choosing Cloud Computing
With a full slate of planned projects in locations half a world away from its Dubai headquarters, Access Power began to consider a move to cloud computing.
“With our company growing so fast, rather than maintaining a full department of servers and infrastructure, we felt it would be better to move to the cloud. Cloud computing is so easy and convenient, affordable, and much more secure. And we can access Oracle’s cloud services from anywhere in the world,” Junaid explained.
Junaid was particularly interested in Oracle ERP Cloud, which allows him to centrally manage the different tax, accounting, and reporting requirements in the many countries where the company plans to do business. The leadership team decided to move to the cloud in 2015, and had Oracle ERP Cloud up and running at headquarters in just three months.
Three Reasons to Like ERP Cloud
Junaid especially appreciates the ability to instantly view the costs and financial transactions for each project, with the assurance that the numbers are accurate. Second, he uses built-in analytical tools to gauge the financial performance of suppliers and the payment history of customers. The easy-to-understand data dashboards help the company’s board members follow the company’s progress at monthly meetings.
Finally, Oracle ERP Cloud offers the scalability Access Power will need to provide electricity to more and more communities, while tracking costs, expenses, and profitability, and working within a strict budget.
“Oracle ERP Cloud helps me collect and analyze financial information in ways that make it much more meaningful for me and for my business,” he said. “I never imagined we’d be able to bring electricity to such remote areas. But new technology is becoming more affordable and we are gaining access. We are able to change lives,” he said.
Linda Currey Post covers science and technology advances as a senior writer at Oracle.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2017/07/31/gaps-in-the-electric-grid-aside-african-economies-are-on-the-rise/#5c53b057384d
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Financing the SDGs: Innovative Solutions for the Funding Gaps
Jul 18, 2017 | Devex
By Devex Editor
On July 12, as a part of Going for Goals content series, Devex hosted a Twitter chat where major global development and private sector organizations discussed the innovative financing models needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and the mechanisms that will have the most impact on people's lives.
These and many other experts took part in the conversation:
• Omar Campos, Senior Director of Funding Partnerships, Philips
• Angela Marcarino, Head of Asia and Pacific, European Investment Bank
• Albena Melin, Head of Global Engagements, Blended Finance & Partnerships, International Finance Corporation
• Roberto Ridolfi, Director, Planet & Prosperity, EuropeAidRead the highlights below.
Question one for Devex’s #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth We’re seeing different stakeholders; from bilateral & multilateral org, country wide & regional governments, NGOs to venture capitals, institutional investors, seed capital companies, private sector vendors. These stakeholders should hone local entrepreneurs to make a business out of these projects to ensure sustainability
• @RobRidolfi Financing gap can only be filled if private investors step in. Development agencies and governments must work in partnership
• @AngelaMarcarino Public and private sectors necessary, not sufficient. Financial markets and institutional investors also not enough
• @IFC_org Without private sector expertise & investment the ambitious SDG agenda will not be reached. If biz put their strategies towards achieving the SDGs, we’ll be opening up an add'l $12 trillion in market opportunity
• @USAIDGH Key stakeholders include traditional funders, but more importantly, country governments are crucial for sustainable response
• @MSHMarian Besides the usual funders, local communities must play a key role in creating innovative solutions & contributing $
▶ See all the great answers for question one here.
Question two for Devex’s #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth Governments are partnering with private sector via innovative mechanisms as PPPs & Managed Equipment Services (MES)
• @BetterThan_Cash Our new study discusses how epay methods could unlock $50B/year required to achieve #energy access 4all http://ow.ly/33OM30dvDNq
• @RobRidolfi Blending public-public and public-private! The trend is to leverage from billions to trillions. #EEIP aims to do that
• @Rotary Matching grants have allowed organizations to pool their finances and increase impact
• @MSHHealthImpact On a local level, govt’s & others are funding performance based financing; it shows good results
▶ See all the great answers for question two here.
Question three for Devex’s #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth In PPPs, private sector’s management, innovation & efficiency can be used to improve government service delivery
• @IFC_org Investors look at risk return considerations. There has to be financial return – profit but also development impact. At IFC we strongly believe & demonstrate there is no trade off between both, purpose & profit go hand in hand.
• @RobRidolfi Potential for investment in Africa is the greatest. To unleash it we need to reduce risk and the perception of it
• @ConvergenceBF For most impact, investment needs to be directed to low-income countries, with Africa being a top priority region
• @GHLeaders Invest in countries with high #NCD rates such as India, South Africa, & Brazil
▶ See all the great answers for question three here.
Question four for Devex’s #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth Strengthening primary care is the most effective way to improve & pave the way for Universal Health Coverage. Primary care needs to be based on community needs to include healthy living & prevention
• @RobRidolfi Partnership will go beyond traditional players - we need to include everyone from CSOs to the private sector
• @IFC_org Inclusive development is about ACCESS. Giving access to poor people to markets, goods, jobs, services. It is about creating markets that serve & benefit ALL in a given society.
• @plus_socialgood Investors must use resources to find diverse applicants & programs. It's not as simple, but the results will be better
• @JohnHewko Models that support local action benefit from partnerships inside of the community
▶ See all the great answers for question four here.
Question five for Devex’s #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth Combining government income with private income flows to facilitate new self-sustainable models
• @RobRidolfi Innovative products and activities under the #EEIP can include social impact investments, such as support to MSMEs that invest in health activities such as lab services, delivery mechanisms or local production of simple medical devices
• @EndPolioNow Funding global health projects at the local level helps spread awareness & urgency
• @WomenThrive Better engagement w/ grassroots orgs. They r the real development experts! W/ more $, they'll make long-lasting change
• @OECDdev Encourage local capital participation & #FX #RiskSharing instruments in #BlendedFinance http://bit.ly/2jTZLW2
▶ See all the great answers for question five here.
Question six for Devex’s #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth Hybrid financing with appropriate risk mitigations by bi & multilateral agencies are key to spice appetite of private sector
• @AngelaMarcarino Development partners absorbing risks, providing guarantees for intermediaries, who on-lend to specific beneficiaries
• @EcoAgPartners Among best ways to mitigate risk is investing in long-term adaptive collab. mgmt at landscape level
• @RobRidolfi Multilaterals bring innovative financing to create a risk profile so private companies can come in and invest
• @EndPolioNow Broad assumptions can lead to leaving many behind. Speak to local leaders & learn about communities' needs before investing
▶ See all the great answers for question six here.
Question seven for Devex #Going4Goals Twitter chat.
• @PhilipsHealth Elevating awareness of these common goals & supporting the stakeholders and finally create the sense of urgency to achieve results
• @IFC_org Hope for HLPF on the #SDGs to deepen partnerships between private sector, civil society, public sectors, foundations.
• @AllaKos_Dev Strong focus on reviewing real progress made under #SDG17 + practical approach & commitmets 4 #collaboration #partnerships
• @WomenThrive At #HLPF2017 - awareness abt the fact that grassroots orgs are #StillLeftBehind & aren't #InTheRoom for SDG decision-making
• @OneYoungWorld We hope #HLPF2017 will focus on the power of #youngleaders in advancing the #GlobalGoals
• @GHLeaders hopes to see continued conversation around partnership for the goals #SDG17 #PPPs #HLPF17
▶ See all the great answers for question seven here.
Over 10 weeks Devex, along with our partners the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, Philips, and the United Nations Development Programme, will take an in-depth look at the innovative financing mechanisms driving forward the 2030 sustainable development agenda. We’ll explore how the funding gap can be filled, ask how cross-sector collaboration can lead to improved global health care, and look at what it takes to build successful partnerships for change. Join us as we examine the innovative financing powering the Global Goals by tagging #Going4Goals and @devex.
https://www.devex.com/news/financing-the-sdgs-innovative-solutions-for-the-funding-gaps-90671
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World Needs $94 Trillion Spent on Infrastructure by 2040 -- Report
Jul 27, 2017 | CNBC - Reuters
By Simon Jessop and Jane Merriman
Nearly a fifth of the $94 trillion in global infrastructure investment needed by 2040 risks being unfunded if current spending trends continue, the G20-backed Global Infrastructure Hub said on Tuesday.
To close the spending gap, annual infrastructure spending needs to rise to 3.5 percent from 3 percent of global gross domestic product, the GIH said in a report.
The report details how much each country needs to spend on infrastructure to 2040, which sectors need it the most and how they far they are from meeting these needs based on current spending trends.
"We believe this information will be key to governments, and indeed those organisations that fund, plan and build infrastructure projects into the future and providing sustainable cities with social and economic benefits for all," GIH Chief Executive Chris Heathcote said.
The GIH, set up by the G20 in 2014, aims to help to increase opportunities for public and private investment in infrastructure around the world. It is funded by governments including Britain, Australia, China, Korea and Singapore.
Every year, $3.7 trillion needs to be invested in infrastructure to meet demand - equivalent to the annual economic output of Germany, the world's fourth largest economy.
And to meet United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to ensure universal access to drinking water and electricity by 2030, investment needs to increase to 3.7 percent of global GDP between now and 2030, it said.
The investment is needed to support global economic growth and fill gaps in infrastructure in both developed and developing countries, the GIH said.
The United States will have the largest gap in infrastructure spending, at $3.8 trillion, while China will have the greatest demand, at $28 trillion, representing 30 percent of global infrastructure investment needs.
The report, which includes a deep study of 50 countries and seven industry sectors, was written by Australia-based GIH and Oxford Economics.
"(It) is a comprehensive and detailed analysis of infrastructure investment need. It gives the new country and sector spending data that governments and funding organisations have been calling for," Heathcote said.
Underpinning the need for increased spend is an expected rise in the global population by 2 billion people by 2040 and 46 percent increase in the urban population, driven by Asia, which needs $52 trillion in investment by 2040 to meet that demand.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/25/reuters-america-world-needs-94-trillion-spent-on-infrastructure-by-2040-report.html
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Al Gore Returns with an Ever-More Inconvenient Truth
Jul 31, 2017 | Scientific American
By Annie Sneed
Water trickles off blue-white glaciers in Greenland in the opening scenes of Al Gore’s new film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which opens to limited release on July 28 in New York City and Los Angeles, and widely on August 4. The rapidly melting Arctic is a fitting place to begin the documentary, which offers up exotic places, tough debates and a thorough update on climate change’s advancement since Gore’s original film. Nature has not waited for humans to act in the intervening decade.
Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, more polar ice has disappeared, and global temperature and carbon dioxide levels have climbed even higher. Hurricanes are growing stronger, droughts more intense and flooding more extensive. Despite all that depressing news, Gore has returned to the stage, still stubbornly pushing his message to the world: There is still hope—we still have time—but we need to act fast.
Although the first film, An Inconvenient Truth, centered on Gore educating the public about the basics of climate change with startling graphics and silly animations, the sequel spotlights Gore’s zealous path since that time—wherever it takes him. Yes, it includes clips of his well-known PowerPoint lectures, this time presented to thousands of his climate leadership trainees and girded with the latest science on summertime temperatures, emerging diseases and more. Rather than evangelize, the directors (Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk) chose to focus more on Gore as he travels around the world, meeting with scientists and government officials and witnessing the already evident effects of global warming. Gore gingerly steps along the thawing Greenland Ice Sheet, mucks through the flooding streets of Miami in rubber boots and consoles a survivor of Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, Philippines. The filmmakers also shadow Gore as he meets with diplomats at the Paris climate conference, and helps broker a deal which purportedly helps persuade India to sign the international accord.
Much has changed since 2006, and not just with the environment. Scientists have a decade’s worth of additional climate change research under their belts, renewable energy has become an unstoppable market force and nearly 200 nations have agreed to the accord. U.S. cities, states and businesses have pledged to cut their carbon emissions and switch to clean energy, regardless of the national government’s action or inaction. The public is now much more aware of climate change and its destructive consequences—thanks, in part, to An Inconvenient Truth.
Yet the film also serves as a reminder about how much has not changed since the original documentary. Climate skeptics still have a loud, influential voice in the U.S. Many Republican members of Congress and Pres. Donald Trump continue to deny the existence of global warming or refuse to do anything about it, saying it is not human-caused; some claim that if we address what they see as a nonexistent crisis, that will destroy the economy. And despite former Pres. Barack Obama’s efforts over the past eight years, the Trump administration is now attempting to revive the coal industry, cut funding for climate change research and roll back as much of its predecessor’s climate legacy as possible.
An Inconvenient Sequel casts India as the antagonist, dragging its heels on cutting fossil fuel use and potentially imperiling global negotiations on climate. But let’s be honest: the U.S. has historically been, and is once again, the climate villain. That depiction was neatly capped by the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement this June—forcing the filmmakers to go back and amend the movie to include the news. In a surprising twist, China now appears poised to assume climate leadership as the U.S. steps away.
Still, Gore’s optimism seems nearly unflappable. Although he concedes there have been “times when it looked bleak and dark,” when he thought “we could lose this,” Gore has put his faith in an increasingly powerful economic force: renewable energy. He may have good reason for hope. Market dynamics are pushing the coal industry out of business, and driving natural gas and renewables to the forefront—sometimes in surprising places. Near the end of the film, Gore visits Georgetown, Texas—“the reddest city in the reddest county in Texas”—and meets its conservative mayor, Dale Ross, who proudly pronounces it will be the first city in Texas to go 100 percent renewable. “We have a moral and ethical obligation to leave the planet better than we found it,” Ross explains. Perhaps environmentalism is not as partisan as Congress and the president make it seem.
The same trend is happening in towns and states throughout the country, especially in places like Texas and Oklahoma, where wind and solar have become increasingly dominant. The move toward renewables is not just in the U.S.—it’s growing in countries all over the world, from Chile to China. Gore sees this clean energy revolution as our salvation. Let’s just hope the change comes fast enough.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/al-gore-returns-with-an-ever-more-inconvenient-truth/
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