Kathmandu, December 9, 2015: The Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) has become successful in registering its eighth Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in form of the Improved Water Mills (IWM), Program of Activities (PoA).
CDM executive board of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recently registered the PoA to be effective from today, the Center stated in a press release today.
With the success, the PoA has become the first project registered with UNFCCC under mechanical energy category. Now, the IWMs installed from October 2011 are eligible to generate tradable emission reduction units or the carbon credits.
The average annual emission reductions from a long shaft IWM installed under the PoA is 9.36 tons of carbondioxide equivalents while the corresponding value for the short shaft IWM is 3.92.
The program aims at disseminating IWMs, also called the Poor Man’s Technology, to the entrepreneurs to cater the mechanical energy required for processing agricultural commodities in the off-grid rural areas of Nepal.
There are ten CDM projects registered from Nepal. Out of them, eight projects are registered by the center. Until the registration of IWM PoA, there were five CDM project activities and two CDM programs of activities registered with the UNFCCC.
The CDM projects registered by the center include around 200,000 biogas plants, 450 micro-hydro plants with cumulative capacity of 15 megawatts, 22,000 improved cooking stoves and 2,200 improved water mills.
Assistant Director of the center, Raju Laudari, said that the registered projects have already generated 1 million carbon credits and center has already realized more than five million USD via trading those credits in international market.
Laudari further said that the center has already started preparatory works for the development of large size biogas digesters as carbon project.
Ram Prasad Dhital, Executive Director of the Center, said, “Since carbon projects secure sustainability for the systems deployed, the center has plan to gradually develop all the technologies promoted as CDM projects.”
Until fiscal year 2014/15, 9,948 IWM have been installed across 50 districts with subsidy from the government of Nepal. Since its commencement, the program has been putting efforts towards enhancing motive power of traditional watermills to cater better grinding, hulling and expelling of agricultural commodities.
More importantly, some of them are also generating the electricity to meet the lighting requirements. The technology has proven handy to provide the electrical and mechanical power to the rural communities having limited water resources and financial capability.
The center, till date, has promoted 350 thousand biogas plants, 25 megawatts of micro/mini hydropower, 700 thousand solar home systems and 1.2 million improved cooking stoves benefiting more than 2.8 million households across the country. Use of the renewable energy technologies, apart from reducing drudgery among women and children, has improved the access to health, education and communication, specifically, for the rural people of the country.
These technologies have contributed in poverty alleviation and improved quality of life of the users by creating opportunities for employment and income generating activities, developing entrepreneurship and increasing economic activity.
Moreover, the access to energy has improved the productivity of the rural people thereby contributing to narrow down the rural-urban discrepancy and regional imbalance. The technologies have also been instrumental in decreasing the effect of current energy crisis in the urban areas of the country. RSS
