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Investments in Clean Energy in South Asia: Visiting Barriers and Gaps from the Perspective of Policies and Politics

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Sustainable Energy and Transportation

Part of the book series: Energy, Environment, and Sustainability ((ENENSU))

Abstract

Many countries in South Asia are facing serious challenges concerning energy access. Robust infrastructure for generation, transmission and distribution are still lacking. Simultaneously, many of these countries have enormous potential for generating clean energy that can solve the problem of energy provisioning and transform their energy mix. It can further cushion them from dependence on fuel imports. However, investment in clean energy in most South Asian countries is far below what is expected and desired. In this perspective, it is important to investigate the evidences on existing constraints that are limiting investments in clean energy in South Asia. Transition in energy systems is essentially a long-term process—and involves changes in technology, economy (structure, efficiency), active policies, institutions, behaviour and belief systems. Mere formulation of policies and setting targets (policy goals) has been found to be insufficient for attracting investment in clean energy in most of these countries. There exists a gap in the literature regarding evidences on the barriers to investment in clean energy in South Asian countries. Following the Political Economy Analysis framework, in this article, the authors attempt to build up on evidence for answering the following questions:

  1. (a)

    What is the nature of energy regimes in South Asia? What are the trajectories of clean energy?

  2. (b)

    What factors are affecting prospects of investment in clean energy?

  3. (c)

    What are some of the gaps in policies, regulations, etc. that have impacts on investments in clean energy?

  4. (d)

    What are the evidences on politics and political mandates of governments affecting investments in clean energy in South Asia?

  5. (e)

    How should the risks in investments be approached and managed?

  6. (f)

    Are there opportunities streaming out of the political economy of clean energy in South Asia? How can these opportunities be leveraged?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The South Asian countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (Intergovernmantal Panel on Climate Change 2007).

  2. 2.

    Energy poverty is the lack of access to modern energy services like electricity and clean cooking fuel (International Energy Agency 2017).

  3. 3.

    Primary energy is energy stored in natural resources like coal, crude oil, natural gas, uranium and renewable resources (CDKN and ODI 2014).

  4. 4.

    The term energy access broadly refers to access to sustainable fuel sources for the purpose of lighting, cooking, etc. (International Energy Agency 2017). Further, the term clean energy is generic and encompasses a large number of sectors like transport, agriculture, industry, etc. Given this rather broad perspective, the focus of this paper is restricted to electricity generation from renewable sources (RE).

  5. 5.

    Public Financial institutions include—International Financial Institutions, Development Finance Institutions, Local Financial Institutions, Export Credit Agencies, Climate Finance Institutions (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2015).

  6. 6.

    In April 2015, the Reserve Bank of India has accorded RE the status of priority sector for lending by commercial banks. Thus all benefits associated with priority sector finance are now available to this sector in India.

  7. 7.

    Systems where policies promote the harnessing of financial resources in building clean energy systems (Hamilton 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, The Bhawanipur Education Society College, Kolkata, India

    Anupa Ghosh

  2. Science and Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Brighton, England

    Duke Ghosh

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  1. Anupa Ghosh
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  2. Duke Ghosh
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Correspondence to Anupa Ghosh .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Railways, Government of India, SRESTHA, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Anirudh Gautam

  2. Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Sudipta De

  3. School of Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Kamand, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India

    Atul Dhar

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Women Engineering College Ajmer, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India

    Jai Gopal Gupta

  5. CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Ashok Pandey

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Ghosh, A., Ghosh, D. (2018). Investments in Clean Energy in South Asia: Visiting Barriers and Gaps from the Perspective of Policies and Politics. In: Gautam, A., De, S., Dhar, A., Gupta, J., Pandey, A. (eds) Sustainable Energy and Transportation . Energy, Environment, and Sustainability. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7509-4_7

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