Abstract
This chapter highlights social and environmental issues encountered by the local communities we live and work with. In their quest for better living conditions they are always confronted with issues such as tackling the need for improved energy services, through projects that involve social changes. Often technical projects don’t have the mandate and scope to address social and environmental issues, even though they are equally important for sustainable community development. Thus, the sustainable development and use of the local renewable energy resources, within a defined environmental and societal context, are an important part of the wider framework of a HCD project.
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Notes
- 1.
Through personal email communication between the author and AEPC in March 2011, AEPC provided the author with the detailed figures for all the SHS installed under their subsidy programs from March 1999–December 2011. More background information about the various AEPC subsidy programs and donors, but without detailed data of the installed SHSs per time period is available at: http://www.aepc.gov.np/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=82&Itemid=132 (accessed July 27, 2012)
- 2.
In October 2011 there were a total of 56 Solar PV companies registered with the Nepal government and out of them 42 were approved by AEPC as so called “pre-qualified” solar PV companies, thus able to sell SHS under the AEPC subsidy program. Under the 2007–2011 APEC solar PV subsidy program, the pre-qualified solar PV companies are able to cash in 8,000–12,000 Nepali Rupees per SHS sold into rural areas from AEPC.
- 3.
One of the main differences in a subsidized SHS project, such as we run through RIDS-Nepal, is that an initial project budget is developed which will be funded by donors and only in part, usually ~10–20%, by the local people in financial terms. Thus, there is no “pressure” to make maximum profit through a SHS project as there is for the commercial solar PV companies.
- 4.
See for a generic description of the biodiversity hotspot that applies to the Eastern Himalaya. http://www.conservation.org/where/priority_areas/hotspots/asia-pacific/Himalaya/Pages/biodiversity.aspx (accessed July 27, 2012)
- 5.
RIDS-Nepal has designed and written its own solar PV system maintenance training manual (Appendix 18), which is also available for download from the RIDS-Nepal web site http://www.rids-nepal.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=183&Itemid=32 (accessed August 10–27, 2012)
- 6.
Key battery data for a database will include: Type (technology) of battery, brand, capacity, specific gravity and amount of electrolyte used, when and to whom sold and where installed (system size and use, coordinates, climate context).
- 7.
The estimated number of >220,000 installed SHS (December 2011) includes only the AEPC (government) subsidized SHS, amounting to 219,818, and not the thousands of SHSs which have been installed by many NGOs/INGOs over the course of the years since the mid 90s. Thus the “dead” battery problem is rather more serious than anyone imagines at the present stage.
- 8.
Till July 2012 there was no company in Nepal able to recycle and refurbish old batteries in a professional way, so that they could be used again e.g. in a solar PV home system.
- 9.
See note 31 “Pinus wallichiana” for more details about the “Pinus wallichiana” in Chap. 3.
- 10.
A direct perceived poverty level can be understood in “seeing” the poverty of a family or community through an initial visit. Thus, things like people wearing torn, or inappropriate clothing, the lack of a stove for indoor cooking and heating, inability to read and write, the lack of access to clean drinking water, etc. are marks of “poverty” which can be perceived quickly as “signs” of being “poor”. However, there are many other parameters, such as having less arable land to cultivate and grow their food, fewer animals, limited or no access to health services, higher debt rates per family to land owners, less access to cash/wealth, stronger dependence on shamanistic rituals to address physical ailments and sicknesses, child marriages and child labor, mental stressors etc., all issues which strongly influence the “level” of poverty of a family or society. These can only be recognized once a detailed base-line survey (such as RIDS-Nepal carries out in each village prior to the start of any long-term HCD project, see Appendix 14) is carried out and evaluated. Thus, in the case of the villagers in Bhajgaon, while they “initially” did not look to be “poorer” than their neighboring villagers, after the base-line survey it became clear that there are substantial and real differences in regard to living conditions and level, which distinguished the Bhajgaon villagers as being substantially “poorer” than their neighboring villagers.
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Zahnd, A. (2013). Social and Environmental Issues. In: The Role of Renewable Energy Technology in Holistic Community Development. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03989-3_6
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