Contrastación de hipótesis

Government initiated programmes have been crucial for the promotion of the renewable energy and electricity technologies discussed above. Particularly the diffusion of solar PV home systems, due to the high cost and initial lack of local industries, required strong government support. The goal of early support programmes was to increase rural literacy rates, living standards and create local industries.

An example of an early government programme was the China Brightness Programme²⁷ launched by the State Development and Reform Commission in 1996. China‘s State Council allocated about or 400 million CNY to support the Brightness Program during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005). The programme provided electricity using both household and village systems and small scale wind with a focus on the remote provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. In total it provided electricity to about 23 million people who previously had no access to electricity (NREL 2004c). High costs for PV systems were shared by the users, local government grants, central government grants, and foreign grants. The project also included the establishment of local and national government bureaus of financing, technical

26 An example is the China Renewable Energy Development Programme (REDP) which is described below in section 5.3

27 Zhong guo guang ming gong cheng xiang mu (中国光明工程项目)

training systems for local technicians and engineers and production enterprises geared toward meeting electricity needs (Meisen and Cavino 2007). A further effect of the Brightness programme was that Chinese solar PV start-up companies such as Yingli, which is now one of the leading solar PV companies in China, were supported.

Government programmes In 2002 the NCRC implemented the Township Electrification Programme²⁸, which was aimed at solving power supply problems by using PV and small-scale wind electricity generation in more than 700 townships in seven western provinces (Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Sichuan). This programme has stimulated the regional PV industry and several production assembly lines have been established, rapidly increasing the annual production of solar cells to 100 MWp in 2007 from 20 MWp in 2002.

Through five nationwide public tenders conducted in 2002 to select system integrators to design, procure and install PV and PV/wind systems, in total fifteen companies were selected, and have issued international tenders for PV, wind turbines, batteries and electronics (NREL 2004). The programme ended in 2005 and was being succeeded by a similar but larger China Village Electrification Programme which has brought renewable electricity to 3.5 million households in 10,000 villages by 2010, to be followed by full rural electrification by 2015. Several international and foreign organisations have been involved supporting this programme, the most prominent being the China Renewable Energy Development Project (REDP) (see section 5.3).

Not only solar PV home systems have received government support. Other national programmes targeting sustainable energy development in rural areas focus on biogas micro digesters. Since 2000 the Chinese government has promoted a subsidy programme for biogas micro digesters installation for rural farmer households and strengthened the institutional system for local biogas programmes. The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has been in charge of implementing rural household biogas subsidy programmes as governmental agency at the state

level for policymaking, legislation issuing and formulating mid-term and long-term plan. The objectives of these national biogas promotion projects are four-fold: 1) to provide an incentive for increased animal production (cows, pigs, sheep), thereby increasing farmers‘ income; 2) to stop the illegal cutting of trees for firewood, addressing the issues of deforestation, serious soil erosion and low-level farm production; 3) to increase agricultural production by using biogas for cooking in the daytime and lighting in the evening; and 4) to improve the overall sanitation, health, and environmental conditions of these villages. (Li and Ho 2006, van Nes 2006).

In 2003 the MOA established the National Plan of Rural Biogas Construction²⁹ which had the goal to increase biogas use to a total of 40 million households by 2010 and close to 100 million by 2020. According to the plan total annual production of biogas would reach to 15.6 billion m³ (11.138Mt ce) in 2010 and 38.5 billion m³ (27.456Mt ce) in 2020 (Liu et al. 2008). As part of this plan a financial support system for rural household biogas projects was initiated. The programme is called ‗Rural Biogas Construction State Debt Program Management Method‘ and invested 840 million CNY for the construction of household biogas in 22 provinces (including autonomous regions and municipalities) in 2003. In the following years the financial subsidy continued and provided 1 billion CNY for constructing rural household biogas digesters. In 2005, central investment in the construction of rural biogas funds rose to 2.5 billion CNY, of which 2 billion was slated for the construction of household biogas digesters and 0.5 billion for the construction of large and medium-sized biogas digesters (Chen et al., 2010). For households this translates into receiving a government subsidy of between 800 to 1,200 CNY (about $150) for each biogas digester, which covers about 20% ~35 % (varies by region) of the total cost for a biogas system installation which includes kitchen, toilet and swine pen renovations (―one digester, three renovations‖). Even with the government subsidy, many poor rural households find it difficult to finance the rest of upfront installation costs.

Other smaller biogas promotion policies include the ‘Management Act for Rural Biogas

29 Zhong guo nong cun zhao qi jian she fa zhan gui hua (农村沼气建设发展规划) http://www.zhaoqiweb.com/zhaoqijishu/zhaoqifadian/a2009912131315.html

Projects Sustained by National Debt‘ from May 2004, or provincial regulations such as the 2005

‗Act for Rural Energy Projects Management of Hunan Province‘ and, also initiated in 2005, the

‗Act for Biogas Development Promotion of Zhejiang Province‘. In addition, a range of technical specifications for biogas technologies and standards for installation of systems have been established. At the same time, corresponding Rural Energy Offices have been setup in provinces, counties and towns, there are more than 30, 1,900 and 8,000 of such offices on the respective administrative levels. Despite these government subsidy supports, new institutions and new regulations, at time of writing only about 20% of the household biogas potential is being utilised in rural China (Chen et al. 2010). This shows that the regulatory frameworks, institutional structures and local markets are still in early stages of development and would still need to be improved to achieve the biogas production target for 2020 and scale-up rural biogas use to its full potential.

5.3 International cooperation and partnerships for rural renewable