The China-US Energy Efficiency Alliance is pleased to announce a new partnership with the US Commercial Service.

As an official export promotion partner of the US Commercial Service, the Alliance will be helping create awareness of the resources for US businesses offered by the US Commercial Service abroad.

This partnership is a great opportunity for Alliance partners to gain greater access to the tools and resources available via the US Commercial Service to help them invest in energy-efficiency technologies and service in China and beyond.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has recently released a report entitled:

“Communicating the ‘financeability’ of energy efficiency projects (EEPs): Guide to data needs for financing EEPs in China“.

Air conditioners on the Hong Kong Golden Mansion by Flickr user See-ming Lee

The team behind the report, Xiaoyu Shi, Thomas K. Dreessen, and Alexander Perera, seeks to help industrial companies finance EEPs at their facilities. Since the guide focuses on the data needed to make financing decisions, it could also be of use to energy services companies (ESCOs), financial institutions, and project managers.

The authors of the guide present three key findings that could help improve successes in securing financing for EEPs:

• Understand the information and decision-making needs of financiers and communicate early and often.

• Perform a self-assessment of the proposed EEP to be financed such as the project size, technology, etc.

• Provide detailed information at the beginning of the project to improve credibility with financiers.

By following the guidelines presented by the authors, a “host” (a facility or group seeking financing for an EEP project) can improve chances of securing funding, thereby making much-needed energy efficiency upgrades that can reduce energy usage and pollution.

With detailed information on each step of the EEP financing process – from pre-screening and creditworthiness assessments all the way through to financing decisions – the guide offers information that can help increase financing for critical energy efficiency upgrades at Chinese facilities.

The China-US Energy Efficiency Alliance is pleased to welcome EnerNOC as our newest member.

One of the largest providers of energy management technology and services, EnerNOC also provides demand response and consulting services for energy supply management. EnerNOC’s customers include commercial, industrial, and institutional entities, in addition to utilities and grid operators. EnerNOC’s service offerings include everything from energy data analytics to energy price and risk management. EnerNOC, which stands for “Energy Network Operations”, seeks to provide alternatives to investment in traditional power generation, transmission, and distribution.

The Alliance looks forward to working together with EnerNOC to help promote energy efficiency.

By Flickr user Alexandra Moss

Alvin Lin and Yang Fuqiang of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Beijing office recently published a piece on China’s carbon tax in China Dialogue.  The two NRDC experts published their thoughts in reaction to a controversial piece in the Wall Street Journal, which claimed that China’s plans to introduce a new carbon tax are not in earnest.

John Lee of the Journal posits that China’s leadership will prioritize economic growth over stringent limits on carbon emissions – thus their choice of a carbon tax versus a cap-and-trade system. Lee also argues that the costs of the carbon tax will eventually be passed on to end-users – mainly consumers of the goods distributed via foreign export. This could have the effect of disadvantaging foreign firms over state-owned enterprises, which, Lee claims, will be beneficiaries of special credits and other assistance to mitigate the economic impact of a carbon tax.

Lin and Fuqiang dispute this viewpoint in their article, which points out that during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (which covered the period 2005-2010), China saved approximately 1.5 billion tons of carbon emissions. With plans to reduce emissions even further during the 12th Five-Year Plan, it is not inconceivable that the proposed carbon tax could lead to additional reductions in carbon emissions in China, which could have a real and lasting impact on global warming, air pollution, and the continued need for newly constructed coal-fired power plants.

The authors of the China Dialogue article also point out that China may be suffering from a PR problem. Even though China has just announced carbon-trading pilot projects in several cities and provinces, such advances are rarely well-publicized. This problem is exacerbated by the paucity of media coverage for such carbon reduction schemes outside China’s borders.

You can read Lin and Fuqiang’s entire article over at China Dialogue to read more about why they believe the Chinese government is serious about taking action to reduce carbon emissions and why the carbon tax is “real”.

Photo taken in Jiangsu by Philip Lai

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has recently launched a risk-sharing facility to support clean energy development in China’s Jiangsu province.

A member of the World Bank Group, the IFC finances investments and provides advisory services in support of sustainable growth in developing markets.

The IFC runs the “China Utility-Based Energy Efficiency Finance Program”, established in 2006,  to help the central and provincial governments of China address climate change. To date, the initiative has provided loans to 178 energy efficiency and renewable energy projects which have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 19 million tons/year.

The overall aim of the new agreement is to mitigate risk for the Bank of Jiangsu when financing climate-friendly projects, in addition to supporting loans for sustainable energy projects. Funding is being provided by the Ministry of Finance of China, the China Clean Development Mechanism Fund, and the Jiangsu Provincial Finance Department.

This agreement not only advances energy efficiency in China, it also demonstrates that climate mitigation and efficiency can be good business.