Asia-Pacific Partnership Yields Renewable Energy and Efficiency Projects

November 8, 2006

The U.S. State Department announced on October 31st that the United States and its five partners in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate have endorsed detailed action plans and nearly 100 collaborative projects. The Partnership is an innovative U.S.-led effort to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies through a voluntary public-private partnership among six major Asia-Pacific nations: Australia, China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. See the press release and detailed agreements on the State Department Web site.

While many of the projects involve fossil fuels or relate indirectly to energy use, 44 projects relate directly to energy efficiency and renewable energy. That includes 25 renewable energy and distributed generation projects, which will touch on solar energy, hydropower, biomass gasification, biofuel-powered generators, biodiesel, geothermal power, hydrogen-fueled generators, fuel cells, and combined heat and power systems. The hydropower projects include both deploying small hydropower plants and upgrading large hydropower plants. The solar energy projects involve concentrating solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, and solar technologies for converting natural gas into a synthetic fuel gas. For one solar project, BP Solar and S-Energy of the Republic of Korea aim to install megawatt-scale solar power systems at a number of locations across the Republic of Korea. The sole geothermal energy project will be run by Australian company Petratherm Limited, which will search for hot dry rock opportunities in China. See the Petratherm Limited press release (PDF 44 KB). Download Adobe Reader.

The 19 energy efficiency efforts include 1 project for aluminum recycling; 10 projects related to efficient appliances and buildings; 1 project for generating power from a cement plant's waste heat (including a demonstration project in Australia); 1 project on utility demand-side energy management; and 6 projects in energy-efficient steel production.