achieving energy savings: clearing the hurdles to municipal energy efficiency projects
I
ndian municipalities and urban local bodies (ULBs) are facing the challenges of growing population, rapid urban expansion, increasing power tariffs and reduced ground water levels. At present only about two-third of the urban population has direct access to clean, affordable and reliable drinking water services. At the same time, municipal water utilities spend approximately 60% of their operating budgets on energy used for water and waste water pumping operations. Although it is one of the most developed states in India in
terms of urbanization, industrialization and entrepreneurship, the state of Tamil Nadu is in a resource race against climate change. In the midst of the eternal struggles with water shortages and energy supply that go hand-in-hand with a successful industrial transition, the challenges of climate change are felt even more strongly in this southeastern state. Climate change scientists at IIT Delhi warn that the slight differences already detected in summer temperatures and monsoon patterns could have even larger effects in the arid and semi-arid climatic regions of Southeast India. Failures in water sources such as the Cauvery Basin not only
a quarterly quarterlymagazine magazineofofthe thesociety societyofofenergy energyengineers engineersand andmanagers managers/ India / India
45
January - March 2011
Hana Chmielewski, Pradeep Kumar & Laura Van Wie McGrory
achieving energy savings clearing the hurdles to municipal energy efficiency projects January - March 2011
a quarterly quarterlymagazine magazineofofthe thesociety societyofofenergy energyengineers engineersand andmanagers managers/ India / India
46
have far-reaching effects in Tamil Nadu's agricultural sector, but threaten the supply of drinking water and hydroelectric power, and pose obstacles to the state's water policy and governance.[1] Tamil Nadu is traditionally an agricultural state, but partly due to harsh droughts, the agricultural contribution to the state's GDP has fallen from 25% to about 13% in less than 15 years.[2] At the same time, the percentage of Tamil Nadu's population directly dependent on agriculture has remained at 60%, making a larger proportion of the state's people more vulnerable to the sharply growing water shortage in the region.[3] In recent years, the Government of Tamil Nadu has made priorities of electrification and water access for its population (with incremental success),[4,5] but how can the shortages be reconciled with the growing demand for water and energy?
Tamil Nadu is traditionally an agricultural state, but partly due to harsh droughts, the agricultural contribution to the state's GDP has fallen from 25% to about 13% in less than 15 years. The Alliance to Save Energy (www.ase.org) supports energy efficiency initiatives as a key component of solving resource shortages and challenges to sustainable development in the water and energy sectors. The Alliance's office in Bangalore has been involved in the implementation of municipal water and energy efficiency projects in India since 2002, particularly by implementing the Alliance's Watergy programme (www.watergy.org), which helps municipalities reduce energy use, water waste and related costs, while simultaneously improving water services. In an unprecedented combination of the Watergy programme with energy efficiency in street lighting, the Alliance in India is improving energy and water access in Tamil Nadu, and helping to pursue the water and energy access goals set forth in the state's 11th five-year plan. The project simultaneously addresses the multiple barriers to energy efficiency projects in the municipal sector, including the lack of technical knowledge and past experience of municipalities and energy service companies (ESCOs) in the water sector, financial barriers to energy efficiency projects on the municipal level, and disputes over quantification and sharing of savings between the public and private sectors. The successes as well as the setbacks of this project have given the Alliance new perspectives on the difficulties encountered by Indian municipalities in implementing energy efficiency improvements, and on the innovative solutions that are best suited to India.
One of the greatest barriers to municipal energy-saving initiatives in India is the lack of technical and managerial capacity within municipal bodies to implement efficiency measures.
As in most countries, one of the greatest barriers to municipal energy-saving initiatives in India is the lack of technical and managerial capacity within municipal bodies to implement efficiency measures. Without specific knowledge or experience in energy efficiency projects, it is difficult for municipal officials to champion such projects in the face of obstacles such as (1) competition for public support with more popular investments that have shorter payback periods and (2) public procurement policies that focus on the lowest-priced assets rather than on the lifecycle cost of the investment. Navigating an energy efficiency project successfully also requires an understanding and political will to carry out complex administrative and financial procedures. In the absence of policy, incentives or official performance standards for energy conservation measures, many municipalities are hesitant to face all of the technical and financial burdens of efficiency improvements without an established precedent or guarantee of payback. To overcome these barriers, the Alliance worked with the International Finance Corporation and India's Bureau of Energy Efficiency to develop a Manual for Development of Municipal Energy Efficiency Projects, based on its past experience in Indian municipalities. The manual, published in 2008, provides guidelines and templates for municipalities planning energy efficiency projects. It was successful in garnering federal agency involvement, and has proven a useful resource during the Tamil Nadu project. Even when the political will exists, funding can be a prohibitive obstacle to carrying out energy efficiency measures. Financing for municipal energy efficiency investments is difficult to secure through a bank loan, because banks consider both municipalities and ESCOs to be financial risks. Municipalities typically operate on tight budgets, rarely enjoying the financial padding to offset any unexpected failures in risky energy efficiency investments. The Indian ESCO industry is young and lacks the strong credit history preferred by lenders, making it difficult to promote their projects to financiers. Many banks, in their turn, do not have the technical knowledge to evaluate energy efficiency projects based on their costsaving potential rather than making traditional assets/collateral-based financing decisions. The more recent energy efficiency loans offered by commercial banks to small and medium enterprises have not extended to
Municipalities typically operate on tight budgets, rarely enjoying the financial padding to offset any unexpected failures in risky energy efficiency investments. In Tamil Nadu, municipal budgets were locked into a cycle of high energy costs and deferred service improvements. The State Electricity Board was strapped financially, while trying to
Figure 2: Financing Model for Tamil Nadu project, 2007-2010
The greatest tool for success in energy performance projects is a strong measurement and verification (M&V) plan, which avoids savings-sharing disputes between the municipalities and the ESCOs. In Tamil Nadu, a third-party M&V agency will be hired to measure energy savings on the ground. Using the reference documents from the Alliance's Manual, customized for Tamil Nadu's needs, qualified ESCOs were invited to bid to implement energy efficiency measures in both the water pumping and street lighting
achieving energy savings clearing the hurdles to municipal energy efficiency projects
47 a quarterly quarterlymagazine magazineofofthe thesociety societyofofenergy energyengineers engineersand andmanagers managers/ India / India
municipalities, whose initial investment levels are higher.[6] The lenders lack the external guarantee mechanisms to justify what are perceived to be high-risk investments.
Because both municipality and ESCO have difficulty in securing funding from banks or financial institutions (FIs), the development of a well-designed energy performance contract (EPC) for implementing energy efficiency measures is a critical mechanism in overcoming the financial barriers to municipal energy efficiency projects. The EPC in the Tamil Nadu project uses a shared-savings model, in which the project expenses will be borne by the ESCOs through loans from the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund (TNUDF) and other financial institutions. To gain the necessary financial support, the Tamil Nadu project bundled energy efficiency projects in 45 municipalities to attract the private sector with proportionally decreased transaction costs and lower collective risk. A Trust & Retention Account (TRA) with escrow of the municipalities' payments on electricity bills will return the energy savings and repay the project liabilities – estimated to be worth about Rs. 3.7 crore annually – to both the municipalities and the ESCOs. The sharing scheme of the energy cost savings rests heavily upon the establishment of an energy baseline for the municipalities' historical energy expenditures – which has been a sticking point for many Indian energy efficiency project agreements in the past. A fair performance contract between a municipality and an ESCO takes many months to negotiate, but is a necessary feature of municipal energy efficiency projects, as traditional financing options are limited.
January - March 2011
increase capacity to keep up with the growing demand. Government procurement procedures permitted only the lowest-cost technology replacements and investments in the water utility, which achieved only temporary service improvements and minimal energy savings. To satisfy energy shortages, cut back on high energy expenditures and water wastage in the water utility, and improve water delivery, Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited (TNUIFSL) launched the energy efficiency in water pumping and street lighting project in 2007, with support from the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), and utilizing the Alliance's technical advisory services. The project partners were able to design a mechanism to address technical capacity and financing issues simultaneously.
achieving energy savings clearing the hurdles to municipal energy efficiency projects
systems. Expressions of interest (EOIs) were received from thirteen ESCOs, of which eight received requests for proposals (RFPs). Six ESCOs responded, and two firms were chosen to carry out the two phases of the project. As 16 of the towns had existing street lighting contracts for operations and maintenance, they were excluded from the first phase, leaving 29 towns to be bundled for the street lighting energy efficiency measures; all 45 towns will be included in the water supply energy efficiency measures in the second phase. The towns were divided geographically, and the two ESCOs were responsible for different regional groups. The ESCOs then conducted Investment Grade Energy Audits (IGAs) and produced bankable IGA reports to discuss with the technical project committee. In some towns, the ESCOs projected energy savings of up to 40% for the street lighting and 36% for water supply systems. Before the implementation of the energy-saving measures, however, a performance contract with an accepted energy baseline had to be negotiated.
Through projects like the one of Tamil Nadu, effective strategies for simultaneously overcoming the technical, financial and institutional barriers to municipal energy efficiency projects are gaining stronger track records. Government agency support and the creation of a standard methodology for municipal water and energy efficiency projects are building technical capacity for energy-saving projects in India and allowing the ESCO industry to gain the confidence of Indian municipalities. The continued support of the ESCOs in the participating Tamil Nadu towns will also help to inspire growing cooperation between the public and private sectors. There exists a strong market potential in the energy efficiency consultancy industry, estimated at over US$300 million, of which only US$12–22 million was tapped in 2004.[6] Capacity growth in all of the energy audit, performance contract and M&V sectors will lead the way in developing more environmentally and economically sustainable municipal systems that maximize the capacity of existing infrastructure through efficiency enhancement before investing in new construction. By incorporating energy efficiency into municipal planning, governments and communities stand to benefit from improved water and energy services as well as from cost savings. References
January - March 2011
a quarterly quarterlymagazine magazineofofthe thesociety societyofofenergy energyengineers engineersand andmanagers managers/ India / India
48 The greatest tool for success in energy performance projects is a strong measurement and verification (M&V) plan, which avoids savings-sharing disputes between the municipalities and the ESCOs. In Tamil Nadu, a third-party M&V agency will be hired to measure energy savings on the ground. As successful M&V methods are complex and technically rigorous, the Alliance provided training for the ESCOs and the municipal engineers on the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) and also developed an M&V plan for Watergy projects in India. A common setback in such projects is the lack of metering and monitoring systems, which makes it difficult to establish baselines once a project has reached the implementation stage. To further complicate monitoring in Tamil Nadu, the energy consumption of the connected load did not match the energy bills because of high rates of unaccounted-for losses from leakages and illegal connections, as well as from the lack of metering. Therefore, it was only after resolving many issues with data collection and metering that a baseline was established for the original energy use data and the energy performance contract could be negotiated.
There exists a strong market potential in the energy efficiency consultancy industry, estimated at over US$300 million, of which only US$12–22 million was tapped in 2004.
1. Jayaseelan I. (2009) Climate Change Impacts in Tamil Nadu. Climate Frontlines. http://www.climatefrontlines.org/sites/default/files/Climate%20change %20impacts%20in%20Tamil%20Nadu.pdf 2. Government of Tamil Nadu (2007) Eleventh Five Year Plan for Tamil Nadu.http://www.tn.gov.in/spc/annualplan/ap200708/1.3_eleventh.pdf 3. Government of Tamil Nadu. (2005) Agriculture Department Policy Note 2004-2005. http://www.tn.gov.in/policynotes/archives/policy2004_05/agri200405-1.htm 4. Government of Tamil Nadu (2007) Tenth Plan Targets and Achievements. http://www.tn.gov.in/spc/annualplan/ap200607/1.2.pdf 5. Government of Tamil Nadu (2008) Physical Achievements during 10th plan. 2008. http://www.tn.gov.in/spc/annualplan/ap200708/1.2_physical.pdf 6. Ürge-Vorsatz D., Köppel S., Liang C., et al. (2007) An Assessment of Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) Worldwide. Central European University. http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/esco_synthesis.pdf (The authors are with Alliance to Save Energy, USA)
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