India | BioEnergy Consult

Things to Know Before Residential Solar System Installation

By Salman Zafar | September 5, 2023 - 6:16 pm |September 9, 2023 Electricity, Renewable Energy, Solar Power

For the past few decades, the world has seen a significant shift to renewable energy sources, keeping in mind the adverse effects of environmental degradation and climate change. However, India and its government have been primarily focused on solar energy production, leading to a significant rise in solar system installation across all sectors, including industrial, commercial, and even residential.

In addition, India’s solar energy capacity grew from 35,000 megawatts in 2019 to 39,000 megawatts in 2020, giving the country international recognition for its solar power production. However, while the reason behind this major shift to solar energy has mainly been to tackle global warming and greenhouse emissions, low electricity bills have also motivated people for solar system installation in residential areas.

So, if you’re also contemplating getting a solar system for your home, here are the answers to some of the most-asked questions regarding residential solar system installation:

1. Can You Meet 100% of Your Power Requirements with A Residential Solar System Installation?

To answer the question, yes, you can meet all your power requirements by installing a solar system for your home. However, there are many factors in play that affect the solar system’s ability to meet your energy needs, including daily power consumption, sanctioned load, roof area with direct sunlight, and your state’s policies on solar system installation.

So, it is essential that you factor in all these points before you invest in a particular solar system, and it is best to consult with a professional for guidance.

2. How Much Can a Solar System Installation Save You on Power Bills?

When it comes to a residential solar system, you can easily save anywhere between 50 to 80 percent or more on electricity bills. However, while such high savings sound like a dream come true, it is important to remember that it takes time to reach that stage, as you won’t instantly see such significant savings. Regardless, you can use an online solar calculator for a clearer idea of how much you can save with a rooftop solar system in the coming years.

3. Is a Residential Solar System Installation Costly?

Even today, many people think that a solar system installation will burn a hole in their wallet, which is also what makes them give up the idea entirely. However, that is not the case, as, in recent years, the cost of solar system installations has gone down significantly, making it largely affordable. But a few external factors such as the solar system’s size, scale, and quality also affect the installation cost, so be sure to keep all these in mind.

4. How Can I Know if My Rooftop is Fit for a Solar System Installation?

Before you decide to opt for a residential solar system, it is essential to check whether your rooftop is stable, safe, and durable for installation. Doing so is crucial as panels and mounting structures are heavy, and a weak/unstable rooftop is more prone to breakage and accidents. So, make sure you get any necessary repairs before the installation of solar system, and also check if there is sufficient shadow-free space for the panels to harness energy efficiently. Make sure your roofing is done by a professional roofing company to be sure that your roof is stable, safe and durable for installation.

5. Where Should I Purchase a Residential Solar System From?

If you have your heart set on getting a solar system for your home, it might be time to start exploring your options. However, the very first thing you should do is look for a reputable and credible brand that offers high-quality, efficient, and cost-effective solar systems. Even better, you get excellent after-sale services, warranties, and customer support for years to come.

So, what are you waiting for? Explore solar systems available in the market and get that solar system installation you’ve been looking forward to today!

Biogas Sector in India: Perspectives

By Emily Folk | August 20, 2023 - 4:41 pm |August 20, 2023 Agriculture, Biogas, Biomass Energy, Renewable Energy

4 Comments

Biogas is an often overlooked and neglected aspect of renewable energy in India. While solar, wind and hydropower dominate the discussion in the country, they are not the only options available. Biogas is a lesser known but highly important option to foster sustainable development in agriculture-based economies, such as India.

What is Biogas

Briefly speaking, biogas is the production of gaseous fuel, usually methane, by fermentation of organic material. It is an anaerobic process or one that takes place in the absence of oxygen. Technically, the yeast that causes your bread to rise or the alcohol in beer to ferment is a form of biogas. We don’t use it in the same way that we would use other renewable sources, but the idea is similar. Biogas can be used for cooking, lighting, heating, power generation and much more. Infact, biogas is an excellent and effective to promote development of rural and marginalized communities in all developing countries.

This presents a problem, however. The organic matter is putting off a gas, and to use it, we have to turn it into a liquid. This requires work, machinery and manpower. Research is still being done to figure out the most efficient methods to make it work, but there is a great deal of progress that has been made, and the technology is no longer new.

Fossil Fuel Imports

India has a rapidly expanding economy and the population to fit. This has created problems with electricity supplies to expanding areas. Like most countries, India mainly uses fossil fuels. However, as oil prices fluctuate and the country’s demand for oil grows, the supply doesn’t always keep up with the demand. In the past, India has primarily imported oil from the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Without a steady and sustainable fossil fuels supply, India has looking more seriously into renewable sources they can produce within the country. Biogas is an excellent candidate to meet those requirements and has been used for this goal before.

Biogas in India

There are significant differences between biogas and fossil fuels, but for India, one of the biggest is that you can create biogas at home. It’s pretty tricky to find, dig up and transform crude oil into gas, but biogas doesn’t have the same barriers. In fact, many farmers who those who have gardens or greenhouses could benefit with proper water management and temperature control so that plants can be grown year round, It still takes some learning and investment, but for many people, especially those who live in rural places, it’s doable.

This would be the most beneficial to people in India because it would help ease the strain of delivering reliable energy sources based on fossil fuels, and would allow the country to become more energy independent. Plus, the rural areas are places where the raw materials for biogas will be more available, such animal manure, crop residues and poultry litter. But this isn’t the first time most people there are hearing about it.

Biogas in India has been around for a long time. In the 1970’s the country began a program called the National Biogas and Manure Management Program (NBMMP) to deal with the same problem — a gas shortage. The country did a great deal of research and implemented a wide variety of ideas to help their people become more self-sufficient, regardless of the availability of traditional gasoline and other fossil fuel based products.

The original program was pioneering for its time, but the Chinese quickly followed suit and have been able to top the market in biogas production in relatively little time. Comparatively, India’s production of biogas is quite small. It only produces about 2.07 billion m3/year of biogas, while it’s estimated that it could produce as much as 48 billion m3/year. This means that there are various issues with the current method’s India is using in its biogas production.

Biogas has the potential to rejuvenate India’s agricultural sector

The original planning in the NBMMP involved scientists who tried to create the most efficient biogas generators. This was good, but it slowed people’s abilities to adopt the techniques individually. China, on the other hand, explicitly worked to help their most rural areas create biogas. This allowed the country to spread the development of biogas to the most people with the lowest barriers to its proliferation.

If India can learn from the strategy that China has employed, they may be able to give their biogas production a significant boost which will also help in the rejuvenation of biomass sector in the country. Doing so will require the help and willingness of both the people and the government. Either way, this is an industry with a lot of room for growth.

Sugarcane Trash – A Renewable Fuel of Today and Future

By Aru Mangla | July 24, 2023 - 1:23 pm |July 24, 2023 Agriculture, Biomass Energy, Renewable Energy

4 Comments

In Indian sugar mills, the frequent cycles of ups and downs in the core business of selling sugar has led to the concentration towards the trend of ancillary businesses, like cogeneration power plant and ethanol production, becoming the profit centres. These units, which were introduced as a means to manage sugar mills’ own byproduct, like bagasse, are now keeping several sugar mills financially afloat. Thus, the concept of ‘Integrated Sugar Mill Complex’ has now become a new normal.

Limitations of Bagasse

Bagasse is a ubiquitous primary fuel in cogeneration plants in sugar mills, which adds more than 2,000 MW of renewable power to the Indian energy mix. The inclination of cogeneration plant managers towards bagasse is primarily because of its virtue of being easily available on-site, and no requirement to purchase it from the external market.

This remains true despite its several significant shortcomings as a boiler fuel, prime among which are very high moisture content and low calorific value. As a result, the fuel-to-energy ratio remains abysmally low and the consequent lesser power generation is depriving these sugar mills from achieving true revenue potential from their ancillary power business vertical, which is pegged at ~10,000 MW.

Sugarcane Trash – A Wonder Waste

Though, there is a much neglected high calorific value biomass which is available in proximity of every sugar mill and is also a residue of the sugarcane crop itself, which could enable the cogeneration units to achieve their maximum output potential. This wonder waste is sugarcane trash – the dry leaves of sugarcane crop – which is left in the farms itself after sugarcane harvesting as it has no utility as fodder and generally burnt by farmers, which harms the surrounding air quality substantially.

Given its favourable properties of having very low moisture content with moderate-to-high calorific value, sugarcane trash could be used in most of the high pressure boiler designs in a considerable proportion along with bagasse.

Undeniably, sugar mills should not discontinue using bagasse as the primary fuel, but surely complement it with sugarcane trash as it would lead to an increase in their revenue generation and would also allow them to expand operations of their cogeneration plant to off-season, as using sugarcane trash with bagasse in season would leave more bagasse for off-season usage.

Hurdles to Overcome

Despite these evident benefits, the major obstacle in development of sugarcane trash as an industrial boiler fuel has been its difficult collection from thousands of small and fragmented farms. Moreover, the trash becomes available and needs to be collected simultaneously during the operating season of the sugar mills, which makes deployment of resources, human or otherwise, for managing the procurement of trash very difficult for any sugar mill.

As a matter of fact, the sugar mills which initiated the pilots, or even scaled commercially, to utilise sugarcane trash along with bagasse, had to sooner or later discontinue its use, owing to the mammoth challenges discussed above.

The Way Forward

Thus, in order to utilise this wonder waste, there is a dire need to outsource its procurement to professional and organised players which establish the biomass supply chain infrastructure in the vicinity of the cogeneration units to make on-site availability of sugarcane trash as convenient as bagasse and enable them to procure the rich quality biomass at sustainable prices which leads to an increase in their profits.

Burning of cane trash creates pollution in sugar-producing countries

These biomass supply chain companies offer value to the farmers by processing their crop residues in timely manner, thus prevent open burning of the crop residue and contribute to a greener and cleaner environment.

Indeed, owing to its favourable fuel properties, positive environmental impact and now, with ease in its procurement, sugarcane trash is the renewable fuel of today and future for the Indian sugar mills.

Wastes Generation in Tanneries

By Salman Zafar | July 23, 2023 - 1:16 pm |July 23, 2023 Environment, Industry, Waste Management

5 Comments

Wastes originate from all stages of leather making process, such as fine leather particles, residues from various chemical discharges and reagents from different waste liquors comprising of large pieces of leather cuttings, trimmings and gross shavings, fleshing residues, solid hair debris and remnants of paper bags.

Tanning refers to the process by which collagen fibers in a hide react with a chemical agent (tannin, alum or other chemicals). However, the term leather tanning also commonly refers to the entire leather-making process. Hides and skins have the ability to absorb tannic acid and other chemical substances that prevent them from decaying, make them resistant to wetting, and keep them supple and durable. The flesh side of the hide or skin is much thicker and softer. The three types of hides and skins most often used in leather manufacture are from cattle, sheep, and pigs.

Out of 1000 kg of raw hide, nearly 850 kg is generated as solid wastes in leather processing. Only 150 Kg of the raw material is converted in to leather. A typical tannery generate huge amount of waste:

Fleshing: 56-60%
Chrome shaving, chrome splits and buffing dust: 35-40%
Skin trimming: 5-7%
Hair: 2-5%

Over 80 per cent of the organic pollution load in BOD terms emanates from the beamhouse (pre-tanning); much of this comes from degraded hide/skin and hair matter. During the tanning process at least 300 kg of chemicals (lime, salt etc.) are added per ton of hides. Excess of non-used salts will appear in the wastewater.

Because of the changing pH, these compounds can precipitate and contribute to the amount of solid waste or suspended solids. Every tanning process step, with the exception of finishing operations, produces wastewater. An average of 35 m³ is produced per ton of raw hide. The wastewater is made up of high concentration of salts, chromium, ammonia, dye and solvent chemicals etc.

A large amount of waste generated by tanneries is discharged in natural water bodies directly or indirectly through two open drains without any treatment. The water in the low lying areas in developing countries, like India and Bangladesh, is polluted in such a degree that it has become unsuitable for public uses. In summer when the rate of decomposition of the waste is higher, serious air pollution is caused in residential areas by producing intolerable obnoxious odours.

Tannery wastewater and solid wastes often find their way into surface water, where toxins are carried downstream and contaminate water used for bathing, cooking, swimming, and irrigation. Chromium waste can also seep into the soil and contaminate groundwater systems that provide drinking water for nearby communities. In addition, contamination in water can build up in aquatic animals, which are a common source of food.

Things to Know About Automatic Weather Monitoring

By Mohamad Misfer | May 1, 2023 - 4:03 am |May 1, 2023 Green, Industry, Technology

2 Comments

Weather variables such as wind speed and direction, air temperature, humidity and rainfall are important factors in determining the course of a wide range of events. For example, agriculture has always been heavily dependent on the weather and weather forecasts, both for its control on the quality and quantity of a harvest and its effect on the farmer’s ability to work the land or to graze his stock.

Water resources generally depend critically not just upon rainfall, but also other weather phenomenon that together drive plant growth, photosynthesis and evaporation. Just as pollen and seed dispersal in the atmosphere are driven almost entirely by the weather, so too is the direction and distance of travel of atmospheric pollution.

Weather monitoring is also important not just in defining present climate, but also for detecting climate change and providing the data to input into models which enable us to predict future changes in our environment.

Because of the wide variety of uses for the information, there are a large number of environmental variables which are of interest to different groups of people. These include solar radiation, wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure, air temperature, humidity and net radiation.

The demand for these data, usually on an hourly or more frequent timescale, has increasingly been met by the development and widespread deployment of automatic weather stations (AWS’s) over the past 30 years or so.

Automatic Weather Monitoring Station

EE-WMS-01, the automatic weather station developed by India-based Engineering and Environmental Solutions is a highly sophisticated monitoring & logging of intrinsic weather conditions like temperature, barometric pressure, wind direction, wind speed, wind chill and other optional parameters according to your requirements.

Automatic Weather Monitoring Station developed by Engineering and Environmental Solutions

Application areas include agriculture, hydrology, ecology and meteorology. For any sort of customized application, Engineering and Environmental Solutions can give assistance to select the best blend of sensors, data logger and accessories accordingly.

Field proven in severe weather conditions.
Unattended weather recording at remote and exposed sites.
Wide choice of sensors and accessories.
GSM Modem communication.

Flexibility and Customization

The DL-W’s analog inputs can be fully customized. Each channel can have its own input type and recording parameters. Software gives the user control over reading frequency, thresholds and units, and provides recording options for average, min and max, plus specialized wind options including wind rose, gusts and wind averaging Users can add their own custom sensor types to the sensor library, exploiting the DL-W’s detailed configuration options.

The DL-W provides 4 input ranges down to microvolt resolution with adaptive auto-ranging, excellent analog accuracy, and configurable sensor excitation enabling it to support nearly all analog sensors. Calculations based on the measurements from several input channels can be recorded and displayed as additional virtual channels (calculated measurements).

For more information and business enquiries please visit www.enggenv.com or contact Mohammad Hamza on +91-9540990415 or email on enggenvsolution@gmail.com or salman@bioenergyconsult.com

Biogas in Agriculture Sector in India: Key Challenges

By Zahir Kapasi | April 27, 2023 - 3:16 am |April 27, 2023 Agriculture, Biogas, Renewable Energy

3 Comments

Although the conversion of agriculture waste – cattle dung and crop residues – to biogas and digested slurry is an established and well-proven technology in India, it has been under-used, probably because until recently, firewood was easily available and chemical fertilizer was relatively affordable to most of the farmers in India.

The National Biogas and Manure Management Programme (NBMMP) was put in place to lower the environmental degradation and prevent greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere. However, this objective of the program is less likely to motivate the farmers and their families to install biogas plants.

This program rolled out by Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (now Ministry of New and Renewable Energy), New Delhi, with heavy subsidies for family-type biogas plants to increase adoption, was successful with lakhs of biogas plants being installed across the country till now.

It was realised that due to poor dissemination of information and unsatisfactory communication about the plant operation & application of the digested biogas slurry, and unable to perceive the return in terms of value resulted in discontinuation of lakhs of biogas plants across the country.

The entire biogas technology marketing efforts failed to highlight major advantage – an increased revenue from agriculture with the use of high quality and a low-cost homegrown digested biogas slurry as fertiliser. Another advantage was to help farmers’ understand that their land quality and output per acre will increase over the years by the use of digested biogas slurry which has been degraded from the rampant use of chemical fertiliser and pesticides.

Challenges to be addressed

The farmer’s communities today are required to made to understand that their revenue from agriculture is decreasing year on year due to increasing deforestation, degradation of land quality, rampant use of chemical fertiliser and pesticides, lack of farm cattle, injudicious use of water for irrigation, and use heavy vehicles for ploughing.

These ill-advised decisions have made the farmers poorer, impacted the health of their families and the rural environment of villages. The years ahead are crucial if this trend is not reversed.

Unending benefits of biogas technology

Most of the rural and semi-urban areas have a poor perception of the Anaerobic Digestion (or biogas or biomethanation) technology. This technology offers benefits to all spheres of society but have a particular emphasis on the needs of the farmers in rural areas.

Farmers with dairy animals generally have free access to animal waste (dung), which provide input feed for the biogas digesters. Normally, these farmers stock-pile the dung obtained from their cattle as a plant fertilizer, but this has lower nitrogen content than the digested biogas slurry created by the biogas digestion process, which is odorless and makes a better fertilizer to substitute chemical fertilizers. They can use the gas for cooking or heating, for running power generators. The biogas technology helps farmers reduce their burden to buy LPG and harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

In short, biogas technology is an integrated solution for sustainable agriculture, improving health and lowering environment degradation.

The promise of biogas technology

Biogas technology can help in the following manner:

Enhance bio-security for dairy animals – being fully fermented, bio-slurry is odorless and does not attract flies, repels termites and pests that are attracted to raw dung.
Provides high quality and low-cost homegrown fertiliser for sustainable agriculture.
Reduce energy poverty and ensure energy security.
Digested biogas slurry is an excellent soil conditioner with humic acid.
Save time for women for education and livelihood activities.
Increase forest cover as less firewood would be needed on a daily basis.
Reduce weed growth

Importance of Government Efforts

The agriculture sector is playing a major role in India economy and it comprises a huge vote bank. Our government has launched various initiatives like GOBAR-DHAN (Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan), Sustainable Alternative towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT), and New National Biogas and Organic Manure Programme (NNBOMP) in attempt to revive interest in biogas technology for farmers and entrepreneurs.

Agricultural residues, such as rice straw, are an important carbon source for anaerobic digestion

These initiatives are aimed at developmental efforts that would benefit the farmers, vehicle-users, and entrepreneurs. These initiatives also hold a great promise for efficient solid waste management and tackling problems of indoor air pollution caused by use of firewood, deforestation and methane gas release in the atmosphere due to open piling of cattle dung.

These initiatives aren’t marketing the value which solves a major challenge – degradation of agriculture land for farming in rural India. The initiative and efforts are majorly focused on waste management, environment and towards behavioral change. These changes are of global importance and can be managed effortlessly by generating tangible results for farmers.

India has an aspiring young workforce which is moving to urban settlements in hope for better opportunities, therefore, productivity and revenue from agriculture needs to grow. The biogas sector in India can restore agriculture productivity and strengthen revenue to make it attractive.

The Relationship Between Waste Management and Sustainability

By Salman Zafar | March 8, 2023 - 8:33 pm |March 10, 2023 Environment, Sustainable Development, Waste Management

Bioethanol Sector in India: Major Challenges To Overcome

By Gazliya Nazimudheen | January 29, 2023 - 4:34 pm |January 29, 2023 Agriculture, Biofuels, Biomass Energy

9 Comments

Global demand for fuel efficiency, environmental quality and energy security have elicited global attention towards liquid biofuels, such as bioethanol and biodiesel. Around the world, governments have introduced various policy measurements, mandatory fuel blending programmes, incentives for flex fuel vehicles and agricultural subsidies for the farmers.

In India, the government launched Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme in January 2013 for 5% ethanol blended petrol. The policy had significant focus on India’s opportunity to agricultural and industrial sectors with motive of boosting biofuel (bioethanol and biodiesel) usage and reducing the existing dependency on fossil fuel.

The Government of India initiated significant investments in improving storage and blending infrastructure. The National Policy on Biofuels has set a target of 20% blending of biofuel by 2017. However, India has managed to achieve only 5% by September 2016 due to certain technical, market and regulatory hurdles.

In India, sugarcane molasses is the major resource for bioethanol production and inconsistency of raw material supply holds the major liability for sluggish response to blending targets. Technically speaking, blend wall and transportation-storage are the major challenges towards the biofuel targets. Blending wall is the maximum percent of ethanol that can be blended to fuel without decreasing the fuel efficiency.

Various vehicles are adaptable to various blending ratio based on the flexibility of engines. The technology for the engine modification for flex fuel is not new but making the engines available in India along with the supply chain and calibrating the engine for Indian conditions is the halting phase. The commonly used motor vehicles in the country are not effectual with flex fuel.

Sugarcane molasses is the most common feedstock for bioethanol production in India

Ethanol being a highly flammable liquid marks obligatory safety and risk assessment measures during all phases of production, storage and transportation. The non-uniform distribution of raw material throughout the country, demands a compulsory transportation and storage, especially inter-state movement, encountering diverse climatic and topographic conditions.

Major bioethanol consumers in India are potable liquor sector (45%), alcohol based chemical industry (40%), the rest for blending and other purposes. The yearly profit elevation in major sectors is a dare to an economical ethanol supply for Ethanol Blending Programme. Drastic fluctuation in pricing of sugar cane farming and sugar milling resulted to huge debt to farmers by mill owners. Gradually the farmers shifted from sugarcane cultivation other crops.

Regulatory and policy approaches on excise duty on storage and transportation of ethanol and pricing strategy of ethanol compared to crude oil are to be revised and implemented effectively. Diversifying the feedstocks (especially use of lignocellulosic biomass) and advanced technology for domestic ethanol production in blending sectors are to be fetched out from research laboratories to commercial scale. Above all the knowledge of economic and environmental benefits of biofuel like reduction in pollutants and import bills and more R&D into drop-in biofuels, need to be amplified for the common man.

Is Green Car Fuel A Reality?

By Salman Zafar | January 3, 2023 - 1:36 pm |January 3, 2023 Automotive, Biofuels, Green

7 Comments

Vehicles remain a huge global pollutant, pumping out 28.85Tg of CO2 in Maharashtra alone, according to a study by the Indian Institute for Science in Bangalore. However, vehicles cannot be discarded, as they form the lifeblood of the country’s towns and cities. Between electric vehicles and hybrids, work is being done to help rectify the situation by making use of green car fuel and technological advancements.

Emissions continue to be a huge issue, and there are two main options for helping to rectify that. The first is electric, which is seeing widespread adoption; and the second, biomass fuel, for more traditional vehicles. Between the two, excellent progress is being made, but there’s much more to be done.

How electric is helping

Electric cars are favoured heavily by the national authorities. A recent Times of India report outlined how the government is aiming for an all-electric vehicle fleet by 2030 and is pushing this through with up to US$16m of electric vehicle grants this year.

Green vehicles are obviously a great choice, improving in-city noise and air pollution whilst providing better vehicular safety to boot; a study by the USA’s MIT suggested that electric vehicles are all-around safer than combustion.

However, where EVs fall down to some extent is through the energy they use. As they are charged from the electricity grid, this means that the electricity is largely derived from fossil fuels – official statistics show that India is 44% powered by coal. Ultimately, however, this does mean that emissions are reduced. Fuel is only burned at one source, and oil refining isn’t done at all, which is another source of pollutants. However, as time goes on and the government’s energy policy changes, EVs will continue to be a great option.

The role of biofuels

Biofuels are seeing a huge growth in use – BP has reported that globally, ethanol production grew 3% in 2017. Biofuel is commonly a more favoured option by the big energy companies given the infrastructure often available already to them. While biofuel has been slow on the uptake in India, despite the massive potential available for production, there are now signs this is turning around with the construction of two US$790m biofuel facilities.

Biofuels are increasingly being used to power vehicles around the world

The big benefit of biofuel is that it will have a positive impact on combustion and electric vehicles. The Indian government has stated they intend to use biofuel alongside coal production, with as much as 10% of energy being created using biofuel. Therefore, despite not being emission-free, biofuel will provide a genuine green energy option to both types of eco-friendly vehicle.

Green car fuel is not entirely clean. The energy has to come from somewhere, and in India, this is usually from coal, gas, and oil. However, the increase in biofuel means that this energy will inevitably get cleaner, making green car fuel absolutely a reality.

The Global Green Economy Index 2016 – Key Findings

By Jeremy Tamanini | December 26, 2022 - 12:40 pm |December 26, 2022 Environment

3 Comments

The 5th edition of the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) is a data-driven analysis of how 80 countries perform in the global green economy, as well as how expert practitioners rank this performance. Since its launch in 2010, the GGEI has signaled which countries are making progress towards greener economies, and which ones are not. The comparison of national green performance and perceptions of it revealed through the GGEI framework is more important than ever today.

Top Performers

Sweden is again the top performing country in the 2016 GGEI, followed by the other “Nordics” and Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. Amidst these strong results, the GGEI identified areas where these countries can improve their green performance further. These opportunities – focused around innovation, green branding and carbon efficiency – could propel their national green performance forward even more in the future.

Developing countries in Africa and Latin America–including Ethiopia, Zambia, Brazil, and Costa Rica– also perform well in this new GGEI edition, ranking in the top fifteen for performance. While Brazil and Costa Rica receive similarly strong results on our perception survey, Ethiopia and Zambia do not, suggesting a need for better green branding and communications in these two African countries.

Like in 2014, Copenhagen is the top green city, followed by Stockholm, Vancouver, Oslo and Singapore. This new GGEI only collected perception values for green cities as lack of data availability continues to impede our efforts to develop a comprehensive green city performance index. Given the significant role of cities in the global green economy, city-level data development is an urgent priority.

Laggards

No country in Asia ranks well for performance on this new GGEI, with the exception of Cambodia, which was the most improved country as compared to the last edition, rising 22 spots to 20th overall. China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea do better on the perception side of the GGEI, but continue to register concerning performance results.

While many European Union (EU) members perform near the top of this GGEI edition, others including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia rank near the bottom. These results are worrisome and suggest uneven national green performance across the EU.

Many of the countries with high annual GDP growth today rank poorly on the GGEI, further highlighting the limits to GDP as a growth indicator. These countries are mostly in Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines) and Africa (Nigeria, Tanzania).

The top green economy performers worldwide

Countries with a high reliance on fossil fuel extraction and export generally perform poorly on the GGEI, with a few exceptions. Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia all perform poorly while Norway and Canada do much better.

Continuing Trends

Rapidly growing economies, China and India continue to show performance weakness on the GGEI Markets & Investment dimension. Given the large investment required to achieve their climate targets, green investment promotion, cleantech innovation, and corporate sustainability should be developed further.

The United States ranks near the top of the GGEI perception survey and it is widely viewed as a vital market for green investment and innovation, yet overall the U.S. continues to have mediocre performance results, ranking 30th of the 80 countries covered. However, the GGEI found that U.S. company-level initiatives to green supply chains and reduce carbon footprints are accelerating.

Despite having a new prime minister, Australia continues to register a poor result on this new GGEI, ranking 55th of the 80 countries covered for performance. While green markets there are showing some strength, the overall carbon intensity of the Australian economy remains extremely high.

Hosting the annual Conference of Parties (COP) can positively impact the host country’s green brand. Yet this short-term image boost does not always translate to improved green performance in the longer-term, as demonstrated by the low GGEI performance results for Poland (COP19), Qatar (COP18) and South Africa (COP17).

The United Kingdom’s GGEI performance continues to lag behind its EU peers, ranking 25th of the 80 countries covered. While the UK does very well on both the perception and performance side of the Markets & Investment dimension, inconsistent policies supporting renewable energy and green growth continue to hurt the UK on other parts of the GGEI.

Note: The full report can be accessed here