Duration : 5 Years
The Norwegian Framework Agreement (NFA) between the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and TERI, 2008-2013, comes at a critical time in global history when the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has reported on its assessments of the changes in climate that the world is locked into due to its anthropogenic emissions and has warned of the little time available for meaningful action to address the consequences of such changes. There seems little doubt that climate change will be the single most difficult challenge to international sustainable development, affecting the North and the South, the developed, the emerging, and the developing economies. Inattention to developing adaptive capacities could create secondary spill over impacts, for example, undermine the capacity of states to provide opportunities and services that sustain livelihoods, which in turn can increase the risk of conflict, with serious consequences at regional and global scales. Countries are beginning to take stock of the way they do business, structure their energy economies and live their lives, albeit slowly. Global and national energy security concerns too have intensified in recent years. Beyond the conventional definition that is supply-oriented and is largely geo-political in essence, there is now a reorientation of energy security debates towards wider energy-environment-equity issues. Disconnects between energy consumers and producers, between large and small energy sector players, between carbon emitters and those most vulnerable to climate change impacts are now part of the wider debate on global energy security.
At the national level, India has announced its National Action Plan for Climate Change and the eight Missions and there is need now to begin to put in place initiatives to implement the proposed actions. It is evident that the ambition of the Action Plan requires new thinking and multiple actors and cannot be expected to be implemented by the government alone. This is a time also when India has a great opportunity to pull its population out of poverty, a key requirement of which is the availability of energy to many of its people who are either unserved or underserved. The Indian energy sector will be adopting nationally appropriate measures to contain its carbon intensity.
This is a time when national and global concerns are merging and calling for much greater collective action and multi-actor responses, more dedicated research, and greater financing to enable action. This Framework Agreement is one such initiative at cooperative action which seeks to strengthen linkages between Norway and India, through a focused set of activities and initiatives that address larger global concerns of climate change and energy security.
The goal of the framework agreement is to address global concerns of energy security and climate change through cooperation between TERI, Norwegian and other third party institutions on climate change, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), renewable energy, and energy policy.
The Outputs are disseminated through the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), which provides a unique platform for government, civil society, corporate sector, academia, and policy makers across the globe for high level discussion around sustainable development issues. The Agreement also supports a Specialized Library on Climate Change (SLCC) which functions as a resource centre to compile, consolidate, and disseminate information in the fields of climate change and energy security. The membership of the SLCC is open for research professionals, scientists, technologists, policymakers, and students across the country.
Divisions in TERI involved
Overall Programme Goal
To address global and national concerns of energy security and climate change through cooperation between TERI, Norwegian and other third party institutions on climate change, clean energy, and energy policy.
The Programme will focus on three themes: Clean Energy Options, Climate Change, and the interfaces of Energy Security and Climate Change and six activities within them.
Clean Energy
Climate Change
Climate Change and Energy Security
The Norwegian Framework Agreement has a strong focus on addressing gender inequities in terms of energy access and climate change in most projects under the agreement. Emphasis is being laid on generating gender disaggregated data that could be used to suggest policy recommendations to address the inequities. These recommendations will form a part of a more holistic policy approach at the country level and the activities and work packages under the agreement are working on this.
The teams for each of the projects has a good gender balance and comprise of young, middle level, and senior researchers, representative of the workforce of TERI.
Gender Mainstreaming in Norwegian Framework Agreement
Back to TopThe target audience will be India in general, and institutions and organization in particular, as well as third party institutions, through capacity building, sectoral impacts assessments, dialogues, and more targeted efforts at incentivising energy change and addressing climate concerns through clean development mechanism, greater penetration of renewable energy and initiatives for improved energy policy.
Through this proposed cooperation with Norway, TERI will also provide useful inputs to the process of international negotiations post 2012 and would build capacity of stakeholders in the country with respect to their participation in climate change mitigation activities.
Key stakeholder groups that this Programme of activities will target and benefit are the rural poor with no access to clean energy, women and children, research community, the business and the policy community, academicians, corporates, and civil society at large.
Back to TopThe research agenda on the theme of clean energy has two important dimensions. While the first dimension of innovation focuses on use of latest technological and scientific know-how in designing, developing, customising and testing technologies to meet specific end-use applications of rural communities in reliable and cost-effective manner, the second dimension of innovation focuses on how communities associate themselves with the newly introduced technologies and accept/enhance the uptake of energy services for their socio-economic benefits and transition to sustainable developmental practices.
The complete value chain of energy innovation rests upon these two broad dimensions. The framing of these two research dimensions are made in such a way that on one hand it revolves around design, testing and customization of technologies based on the Indian rural market and on the other hand on societal dimension of technological innovation and understanding the dynamics of technological appropriateness and its deployment.
'Innovating to bring clean energy for livelihood generation in India' is one of the projects under the ‘TERI-Framework Funding for Institutional Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change' signed between the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and TERI.
The research agenda in this project has two important dimensions. The first focuses on the use of latest technological and scientific know-how in designing, developing, customizing and testing technologies to meet specific end-use applications of rural communities in reliable and cost-effective manner. The second focuses on how communities associate themselves with the newly-introduced technologies and accept/enhance the uptake of energy services for their socio-economic benefits and transition to sustainable developmental practices.
The complete value chain of energy innovation rests upon these two broad dimensions. These dimensions have been framed in such a way that they factor design, testing, and customization of technologies based on the Indian rural market and take into account the societal dimension of technological innovation as well as the dynamics of technological appropriateness and its deployment.
One of the key tasks of executing the project involves identification of appropriate livelihoods for intervention and the impact of energy interventions on the identified livelihoods and associated lives. The research agenda is carried through five specific work packages for a period of three years (2010-2013).
These include:
Work Package-1(WP-1):Developing and customizing renewable energy technologies keeping the focus on Indian rural markets and needs.
Work Package-2(WP-2):Testing and assessing the performance of these technologies at the lab scale.
Work package-3 (WP-3):Demonstrating 2-3 customised technologies at 6-8 locations in India.
Work package-4 (WP-4):Conducting technical training programmes at all locations used for demonstration.
Work package-5 (WP-5):Disseminating the findings to the research communities by organizing an international workshop/ knowledge dissemination programme.
The project is currently being implemented in four Indian states i.e. Odisha, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. Under this project, 2-3 customized, need-based and application-specific, clean energy based technologies will be demonstrated at around 10-12 locations in the four states. Subsequently, participatory action research will be carried out at these locations to understand emerging socio-technical linkages.
Appropriate Battery Technologies for Small Scale Solar Applications
Date: 24 - 25 April 2014
Venue: TERI University, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi
A Two day Training Programme on Appropriate Batteries used for various Applications was organized on 24-25 April 2014 at TERI University, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. The training programme was organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Regnant Group with the support of Battery Society of India and the Royal Embassy of Norway.
During TERI's experience of implementing clean energy systems under the Norwegian Framework Agreement (NFA) project (Work Package I: Clean Energy Interventions for Livelihood Generation), a need to enhance the skills of grassroots workers on battery testing and management was found.
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State level Practitioners Training Workhshop: Rural Livelihood and Access to Renewable Energy
Date: 2 January 2014
Venue: Bhubhaneshwar, Odhisha
TERI organised a Practitioner’s workshop on Augumenting Livelihoods through Renewable Energy in Rural Areas at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar (XIMB) on the 2nd of January 2014. This workshop, organised with the joint support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy (NFA Project - Clean Energy Interventions for Livelihood Generation) and the UK Research Council and DfID (OASYS South Asia Project) aimed to bring together practitioners working in the fields of energy and livelihoods to collectively discuss the synergies between renewable energy and livelihood generation in rural areas.
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TERI signs MoU with General MicroGrids Inc.
Date: 6 November 2013
TERI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the General MicroGrids Inc., USA, for Micro-Grid Project Collaboration to facilitate clean energy access in India. TERI has also joined Santa Fe Microgrid Systems Laboratory (MSL), and MSL Research Network (MRN) as a founding member. The initial MRN cohort comprises MSL members - Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and other international partners and regional anchors. TERI's state-of-the-art Smart Controller Laboratory (SCLab) will serve as the anchor Smart Grid/Micro-Grid/Mini-Grid research laboratory for the South Asian region.
Smart Design Technology for Clean Energy Applications Conference 2013
Date: 9 January 2013
Venue: Shangrila's Eros Hotel, Ashoka Road, New Delhi
Coordinators: Alekhya Datta, and Mukesh Gujar
Smart Design Technology for Clean Energy Applications Conference 2013' was jointly organized by TERI and National Instruments (NI) India on 9 January 2013 at Shangrila's Eros Hotel, New Delhi. The conference provided an international platform for comprehensive discussion on issues pertaining to clean energy, smart design techniques and their applications.
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Distributed Generation based Smart Mini Grid System using NI CompactRIO and LabVIEW
TERI has won the Second prize (Runner-up) award under the 'Research' category in the Graphical System Design Achievement Awards (GSDAA) 2012, organized by National Instruments (NI) which recognizes the most interesting applications using NI products in the field of Research.
Alekhya Datta, Mukesh Gujar, and Parimita Mohanty
TERI has developed first-of-its-kind Smart Mini-Grid (SMG) System in India, driven by state-of-art power electronics devices and controlled through ultra-fast digital technology based on National Instruments CompactRIO and LabVIEW which offers a higher degree of flexibility, reliability, efficiency and safety of complete power system.
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Presentation of our work and findings have been presented at the following forums:
Odisha SMU Case Study - Patapolasahi: ' Members from the Healing Heritage Farmer's Association, displayed their herbal medical products, now being produced using the SMU installed in Patapolasahi, Cuttack District, Odisha, at the Green Haat event organized by the Ministry of Environment and Forests at Dilli Haat, between 16th January and 31st January 2013'.
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Smart Controller Lab: The Smart Controller Laboratory is a state-of-the-art facility for design and development of innovative, cost-effective, smart and sustainable distributed power solutions. This laboratory is located in TERI's Gual Pahari Campus and supported by the Norwegian Framework Agreement Project. For more information, kindly refer to the brochure of the laboratory.
For more details on the project and opportunities for collaboration on clean energy system for rural areas please contact : Ms Parimita Mohanty
The Climate Change theme is covered over three key Activities. Activities 2(a) and 2(b) involve understanding and filling critical knowledge gaps in the extent and timing of climate change effects and designing and implementing NAMAs and REDD Plus respectively. Activity 2(c) revolves around garnering the efforts of businesses and industries in addressing climate concerns and conserving the environment.
India is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its diversified socio-economic profile and heterogeneous climatic regions. To address these vulnerabilities and adapt effectively to their impact, it is necessary to build institutional capabilities for climate change projections, both at global and regional scales and quantify sectoral impact assessment for important sectors like agriculture, water resources, and health. The existing state-of-the-art general circulation models are yet to be fine-tuned to address the complexities of Indian summer monsoon before they can be used for reliable monsoon predictions, climate change projections, and regional impact assessment studies. A successful development policy can be formulated only if the uncertainties in impact assessments are minimized, or at least quantified.
NAMAs
To implement the Reduce Emission from Deforestation and Degradation mechanism (REDD Plus) and presented the assessment at COP 15 of the UNFCCC at Copenhagen in 2009 (http://www.teriin.org/events/CoP15/Forests.pdf). The present research project is part of TERI's continuing effort to assess and design a REDD-plus pilot project in Analyzing issues and options for implementing NAMAs.
The NFA project, ‘Analyzing issues and options for implementing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs)’ , is an international collaborative attempt in which we partner with Vitae Civilis (Brazil), University of Cape Town (South Africa) and Tshingua University (China). The project aims to identify constituent elements of NAMAs, define country-specific “appropriateness”, and assess the capacity requirements of developing countries for effective implementation of NAMAs—in short, to enable a clearer understanding of the concepts and issues surrounding NAMAs. The key outcome of this study will be a set of objective criteria to clearly define “appropriateness”, which is expected to guide the choice of NAMAs based on the individual country context.
The results of the project will be disseminated through a working paper and a book, which will consolidate the research findings. In addition, the project also supports a quarterly newsletter (three issues of which have been published) to facilitate dissemination and exchange of ideas.
The project seeks to thoroughly engage stakeholders in the process of developing the required criteria defining appropriateness. To gain from stakeholders’ experience and input, a workshop was organized in August 2011, which was attended by several national and international policymakers and researchers, as well as representatives from our partner institutions and dignitaries from the project sponsor, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The workshop witnessed various fruitful sessions with the participants who brought to the table and highlighted key issues and various dimensions of the architecture of NAMAs. In addition, a short survey was also administered to the participants to elicit their responses to identify the socio-economic criteria for evaluation of potential mitigation actions, and the desired characteristics of NAMAs.
The project was also showcased at the CoP 17 (Durban), Dec 2011, at the side-event organized jointly by TERI, ERC (Energy Research Centre) of the University of Cape Town and Tsinghua University. The side event focused on bringing the BASIC country perspectives on an international mechanism for NAMAs and analysis of its linkages at the national level. The progress made in various countries and the gaps remaining were identified and discussed upon.
REDD Plus
The Forestry and Biodiversity group at TERI had earlier carried out a preliminary assessment of India's readiness India. The specific objectives of the project are: (a) To analyze the international architecture for REDD-plus, (b) To study the potential impacts and response options for REDD-plus in India, and (c) To undertake a comprehensive assessment for designing a REDD-plus pilot project in India.
As a learning event, a meeting of the Asia REDD+ Working Group (ARWG) was organized by the Forestry and Biodiversity Group, TERI, New Delhi, and Community Forestry International, USA during Jan 31 - Feb 2, 2011 at TERI University, New Delhi. This meeting brought together the representatives of REDD+ projects being implemented in India, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines in order to provide a regional overview of the emerging learning and experience. The project would next hold a stakeholder consultation and meeting in April 2012 to deliberate on the draft paper based on the analysis of the developing global REDD-plus architecture.
It is expected that the proposed criteria will be utilised to spread the idea of appropriateness in developing countries and bring home the fact that undertaking actions that are country specific will ensure effective mitigation actions in developing countries. It is also expected that it will help to address the north south divide by clearly identifying the areas of cooperation relevant for developing countries. It is hoped that the study will provide a new approach to undertake assessment of developing country needs that can help undertake actions that are effective to tackle climate change and are achievable. The application of this approach will help in identification of priority NAMAs that are specific to each country being studied. The process of policy design and implementation of REDD plus projects in India would be guided.
Given the announcement of the National Action Plan on Climate Change, it is now vital to involve business in operationalising it. As Indian industry rapidly assumes global relevance and proportions, its leadership needs to attain a higher level of consciousness in order to achieve its responsibilities towards a cleaner environment and the climate change concern. This can be accomplished through a combination of long-term strategic thinking in the context of environmental challenges, emphasis on research and development, and a re-alignment of business focus.
TERI–BCSD* member CEOs had proposed the initiation of a project that can draw upon the collaboration and expertise of leading researchers and practitioners who make a substantial contribution to the discourse of sustainable development in India and internationally. The proposed project is a response to a felt need from the business side and is expected to facilitate collaboration of Indian business with international organizations, including Norwegian enterprises, to develop new ideas and approaches to sustainable practices and action on climate change through learning by sharing methods. The overall goal of the project is to enhance the capability of the business sector to innovate by focusing on research based activities and innovative dissemination/engagement programs.
*For the past several years, TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) has been addressing issues related to sustainable development with the Indian industry. It set up TERI-BCSD (Business Council for Sustainable Development) currently a network of over 100 motivated and environmentally conscious corporates . TERI-BCSD is the Indian partner of the WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), Geneva. It is now a pre-eminent business voice on sustainable development issues, a constructive contributor to solutions and a trusted partner of other organizations.
In view of the close interaction between energy and climate change, it is important for India to not only transition to more sustainable pathways, but also to have a coherent view of the evolving trade and climate regimes as they relate to energy and energy technologies. In cognizant with this, the Climate Change and Energy Security theme is based on two key Activities.
Activity 3(a) aims to study and develop strategies to address the energy challenges faced by India and the linkages that the energy challenge has with climate change and water.
Activity 3(b) deals with IPR regimes that govern access to technology at regional and global levels and examining carbon constraints as factors that determine trade regimes which will influence the generation of income and wealth by countries and people.