The greatest threat for the underdeveloped nations is the use of fossil fuel which leads to greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2015 United Nation adopted Sustainable Development Goals which includes a specific goal on energy (SDG 7) aiming to ensure access to sustainable, modern, affordable and reliable energy for all.
SDG 7 encompasses renewable energy growth, universal energy access, energy efficiency improvements under 7.1 to 7.3, and international cooperation in sustainable energy infrastructure development and technology upgrades and expansion of energy systems under 7.a and 7.b.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has the ability to play an important role in transforming initiatives, the inclusion of such technology in energy systems enables control and management of work, and improved monitoring.
ICT facilitates smart meters and mobile payments to reduce operating costs for providers and receivers, this technology ultimately helps in data analytics and storage management. Deeper penetration of renewables would be impossible without having ICT and if seen from demand and supply ICT can be cost-effective.
To fully utilize ICT some steps are required, such as:
- Entrepreneurship promotion- There is a need to bring ICT access to entrepreneurs which can boost development of mini-grid enterprises. A separate framework is needed to enable cashless payments to reduce several problems in cash transaction.
- Compromising to create a better environment- For renewable energy generation, the fixed tariff on electricity have created several hindrances for mini-grids that are not able to receive these subsidies an overall strategy is needed to counter this problem through ICT.
ICT can accelerate the challenging but achievable goal to reach SDG 7.