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© 2004-2005 CEMTPP

Academic Program
WORKSHOP

The Workshop in International Energy Management and Policy provides second-year IEMP students with the opportunity to apply what they have learned from their coursework, internships and prior work experience to real-world consulting engagements.  Students work in teams with a faculty supervisor to assist clients on energy-focused assignments. 

The IEMP Workshop clients in spring 2006 were the United Nations Development Program, GE Commercial Finance - Energy Financial Services and the New York City Economic Development Corporation
 

United Nations Development Program
Supervising Faculty: Professors David Nissen and Vijay Modi (Mechanical Engineering)

Strategies for Scaling up Community-driven Energy Interventions to Reach the Millennium Development Goals

This workshop is likely to be repeated in 2007.

The student team presentation for this workshop were made as part of the UNDP Knowledge Expo, "Energizing the Millenium Development Goals," at United Nations Plaza on Wednesday May 3.  More information is available at this web site and in this document.

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, more than 150 heads of state adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to reducing poverty. The Declaration led to the articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of time bound and quantified targets for combating extreme poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, and environmental degradation.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with the UN Millennium Project and UN country teams, is supporting developing countries in integrating the MDGs into national development frameworks. The aim is to help countries align their existing planning instruments and processes, like Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, with the MDGs so that countries are able to adopt their own integrated MDG-based development strategies.

Preparing integrated strategies begins with, among other things, the establishment of country and sector specific baselines and targets followed by an estimate of the resources needed to bridge the gap between the two. This so called “needs assessment” is the basis by which national strategies are translated into short- and medium- term plans and budgets.

Energy is one of a number of thematic areas or sectors UNDP and the UN Millennium Project are trying to integrate into MDG-based poverty reduction strategies. With the help of a pilot project, UNDP and the UN Millennium Project are in the process of demonstrating needs assessments for eight developing countries. The energy team at the UN Millennium Project, led by Columbia University Professor Vijay Modi, and UNDP’s Sustainable Energy Group are the two lead groups responsible for energy within the pilot’s overall package of assessments. UNDP envisions the Spring 2006 Workshop as being an opportunity to help with the energy needs assessment for one of the pilot countries, namely Senegal.

The objective of the Spring 2006 Workshop is to help estimate the level of investment required to scale up energy services in Senegal from their current level to a level commensurate with the achievement of the MDGs. Exactly what level of energy access is deemed commensurate with the achievement of the MDGs will be determined in cooperation with government counterparts.

GE Commercial Finance - Energy Financial Services

This workshop is likely to be repeated in 2007.  Supervising Faculty: Professor David Nissen

The client for this workshop is GE Commercial Finance - Energy Financial Services, located in Stamford, Connecticut.  GECF-EFS is a global leader in energy investing and financing using products that span the capital structure, including structured equity, leveraged leasing, partnerships and project finance.  It serves companies that include utilities, independent power generators, transmission and distribution, oil & gas, refining, pipeline, coal mining, energy technology, and equipment manufacturers.  GECF-EFS currently has $12 billion in earning assets and places $2-3 billion of new volume annually.

Students will be grouped into three teams to analyze the potential for investment in the power sector in one of three countries: Qatar, Oman and Brazil.  The analysis will consist of three parts.  The first part will focus on economic, political, legal and regulatory framework and historical analysis of risks and mitigants in the country.  The second part will formulate and support a forward-looking view of electric utility sector trends and implications for financial investors in the sector.  The third part will cover strategies of major regional industry players, track records of investments in power (generation, transmission, distribution, other) and potential lessons learned from past successes and challenges.

 

New York City Economic Development Corporation
Supervising Faculty: Professor Stephen Hammer

This workshop is likely to be repeated in 2007.

A recent Mayoral Task Force, focused on energy matters, reviewed and concurred with other published reports suggesting New York City faces an imminent electricity supply shortfall due to growing demand and the anticipated retirement of existing electricity generating capacity in New York City.  The Task Force developed a series of recommendations designed to help increase the amount of electricity supply available in the city, including the siting of new generation plant capacity in the city, the development of new transmission capacity into the city (allowing local utilities to access external supply sources), and initiatives designed to reduce local electricity demand either by promoting energy efficiency and conservation or the use of small-scale ‘distributed’ power resources that generate power at the point of use.  Most distributed power sources anticipated to come on line in the city are fossil fuel-based; because of the current high cost of these systems and difficulty ofinterconnecting certain technologies into the existing electrical grid, it is not anticipated that renewable power technologies will make much of a contribution in the near term.  The New York City Economic Development Corporation is nonethless interested in understanding more about how renewables can contribute to the local electricity picture, and asked CEMTPP to conduct a workshop whereby students would examine which type of renewable power technologies hold the greatest potential in New York City.  

For more information about this workshop and a link to the final report, click here.

© 2006 CEMTPP