Clean Energy Just 6.1% of Himalayan Nations' Supply Despite Huge Potential: ICIMOD

Despite holding "immense renewables potential", clean energy accounts for only 6.1% of the total primary energy supply in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) countries, including India, with hydropower remaining "hugely underexploited", a new report said on Friday.

The assessment by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), launched at the Asia-Pacific Clean Energy Week in Bangkok, said 635 gigawatts of the 882 GW of identified hydropower potential in Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan lies in the HKH rivers. Only 49% of this has been tapped.

The report put the region's non-hydro clean energy potential (solar and wind) at three terawatts. While HKH countries together target 1.7 terawatts under their climate pledges or nationally determined contributions, the renewable potential within the region alone exceeds 3.5 terawatts.

Bhutan and Nepal generate all their electricity from renewables, while fossil fuels dominate power generation elsewhere: 98% in Bangladesh, 77% in India, 76% in Pakistan, 67% in China and 51% in Myanmar.

The study warned that climate change is disrupting hydropower through water variability, extreme weather and glacier floods, with nearly two-thirds of projects at risk. It called for disaster risk strategies and alternatives to big dams, such as efficient irrigation, urban water storage and wider adoption of solar and wind.

"We have extraordinary renewables potential within our region, as well as, in India and China, two of the world's pioneers in clean energy," said coordinating lead author Avishek Malla.

"Building on this amazing competitive advantage that Asia now holds in renewables represents a tremendous opportunity to turbocharge green economic growth, while lifting people out of poverty and meeting our ambitious emissions-reductions targets," he said.

Malla said it is crucial that countries think beyond trade to truly seize the opportunity renewables hold for the HKH region, however, they need investment in infrastructure and a massive uptick in south-south skills and technology exchange.