Abstract
There is considerable well-intended, yet wishful anticipation about reducing greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fuel-based lighting in the developing world with grid-independent light-emitting diode (LED) lighting systems. Most estimates gloss over important practical realities that stand to erode a genuinely significant potential. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the leading system for quantifying the benefits of such projects in developing countries and embodying them in a market-based platform for trading carbon credits. However, compliance with methodologies for highly decentralized, small-scale energy saving projects currently employed in the CDM is viewed by developers of as onerous, time-consuming, and costly. In recognition of the problem, the CDM has recently placed priority on improved methodologies for estimating carbon dioxide reductions from displacement of fuel-based lighting with energy-efficient alternatives. The over-arching aim is to maintain environmental integrity without stifling sustainable emission-reduction projects and programs in the field. This article informs this process by laying out a new framework that shifts the analytical focus from highly costly yet narrow and uncertain baseline estimations to simplified methods based primarily on deemed values that focus on replacement lighting system quality and performance characteristics. The result—many elements of which have been adopted in a new methodology approved by the CDM—is more structured and rigorous than methodologies used for LED projects in the past and yet simpler to implement, i.e., entailing fewer transaction costs. Applying this new framework, we find that some off-grid lighting technologies can be expected to yield little or no emissions reductions, while well-designed ones, using products independently certified to have high quality and durability, can generate significant reductions. Enfolding quality assurance within the proposed framework will help stem “market spoiling” currently underway in the developing world—caused by the introduction of substandard off-grid lighting products—thereby ensuring carbon reduction additionality (emissions reductions that would have not occurred in the absence of the CDM program).
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Notes
This article builds on Mills (2010).
At US average conditions of approximately 20,000 vehicle kilometers traveled per year at 0.81 l/100 km.
Note that many proponents of off-grid lighting conflate the documented health impacts and mortalities associated with fuelwood with those from lighting. However, while cook stoves no doubt pose a far greater threat to health and life than do lighting fuels, those from lighting are not trivial.
This amount derives from estimated carbon emissions of 190 MT CO2/year (Mills 2005) at the current selling price of approximately US$20 per ton CO2.
While this article focuses on the CDM, the principles developed herein apply equally well to the various voluntary market emissions-reduction systems, and could in fact add rigor to such programs and thus increase the valuation of carbon offsets they attain.
However, geography can be taken into consideration for things like baseline lighting fuel mix, prevailing fuel prices, and willingness to pay for alternative technologies.
The analysis in this report focuses on integrated systems. Custom-made LED lighting systems (e.g., with technician-installed batteries, lights, and charging devices) are not common in this market and the associated risks would need to be treated in the CDM assessment framework in much the same fashion as traditional Solar Home Systems.
One study claims that average study time of students rose from 1.47 to 2.71 h/day, with a positive effect on school performance (Agoramoorthy and Hsu 2009).
Cautious estimates might be 6–9 months for sealed lead–acid batteries, 2 years for nickel–metal hydride, and 3 years for lithium ion technology.
Incorporation of quality assurance into carbon emission reduction schemes could be achieved through collaboration with emerging quality assurance efforts such as that under development by the World Bank Group’s Lighting Africa initiative (http://www.lightingafrica.org/node/78).
Methodology AMS II.C. "Demand-side energy efficiency activities for specific technologies" may be applicable for grid-recharged products with battery storage.
This is the current CDM default value, which is a low value based on recent survey results from five sub-Saharan African countries from the Lighting Africa (2009) market research. This survey encompassed 5,000 end-users across five countries. Evening use alone averaged 3.5 h/day in Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and 4 h/day in Ghana. Additional use in the early mornings was not quantified, but is frequently reported at 0.5–1.5 h/day, which we have observed using embedded loggers as shown in Fig. 7.
In a recent study (Tracy et al. 2010a), night watchmen reported an estimated time of 3.5 h of flashlight use per night; however, preliminary results from digital data logging indicates that nightly time of use is closer to 1.5 h on average. Radecsky et al. (2008) also reported higher than actual measured rates of use.
Households targeted by a CDM project in Karnataka were said to pay as little as 12 Rupees/l ($0.25/l) for kerosene (CDM 2009), which is substantially lower than prices of $1–2/l observed in sub-Saharan Africa.
In legal rule D. S. No. 045-2009-EM on 29 April 2009, the Peruvian government banned the sale of kerosene nationwide.
This range is defined depending on lamp type and grid carbon emissions factors. A 100-W incandescent lamp and an emissions factor of 1,000 g CO2/kWh of electricity would correspond to about 100 g CO2/h, a 15-W compact fluorescent lamp and an emissions factor of 500 g CO2/kWh of electricity would correspond to emissions of 8 g CO2/h.
It should be noted that new LED systems with rechargeable batteries that replace conventional flashlights offset significant solid waste production in the form of non-rechargeable batteries (implying additional embodied carbon reductions). Moreover, there are carbon emissions associated with producing and distributing liquid fuels, which may alone outweigh those embodied in the manufacture of LED lighting systems.
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Acknowledgments
A longer version of this report was prepared at the request of The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Small Scale Working Group of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board. This work was also supported by The Rosenfeld Fund of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley, through the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Art Rosenfeld has been a key supporter of this work. This project benefitted from valuable collaborations with Gaj Hegde of the UNFCCC Secretariat; Peter Alstone, Kristen Radecsky, Jennifer Tracy, and Dustin Poppendieck at Humboldt State University; Jessica Granderson, Jim Galvin, and Francis Rubinstein at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Maina Mumbi and Francis Ngugi in Kenya. Steven Schiller of the CDM Small Scale Working Group provided constructive review comments and consultation.
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Mills, E., Jacobson, A. From carbon to light: a new framework for estimating greenhouse gas emissions reductions from replacing fuel-based lighting with LED systems. Energy Efficiency 4, 523–546 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-011-9121-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-011-9121-y