Advantage Energy: Emerging Economies, Developing Countries and Private-Public Sector Interface

Introduction

The term energy system, as used in this paper, refers to the totality of components that contribute to delivering energy services to end‐users. To a large degree, the system comprises technologies that generate, distribute and convert energy. Yet the technological aspects of all energy systems – global, regional, national or local – reflect underlying factors such as the resources available, the stage of economic development, the political priorities of governing bodies and the opportunities for the private sector to realise a reasonable rate of return on their investment in providing energy services.

In general, an energy system can be organised in the following manner:

• Energy sources including fossil fuels, renewable energy and nuclear.
• Distribution and conversion including pipelines and shipping, electricity transmission and distribution networks.
• Energy uses such as transport, lighting, refrigeration, cooling, smelting and refining.

This paper chooses to examine the overall energy system using a typology that breaks it into three energy subsystems: heat, electricity and transport.4 Together, these three components accounted for 91% of global final energy consumption in 2008...