Increase national energy security (Policy no. 4, Maldives National Energy Policy and Strategy 2010)

Background: Energy security for a small island nation such as the Maldives can only be achieved through diversification of the country's energy resources to reduce our dependence on imported fuels. The burden of rising global oil prices is compounded by the fact that the Maldives relies heavily on imports to meet almost all of the country's domestic demand. To ensure continuity of the supply, the energy mix must be considered along with important factors such as the economic cost, environment impacts, reliability of supplies, convenience to consumers and strategic independence.
Strategies:

• Enhance national energy security by promoting indigenous renewable sources of energy while reducing the reliance on imported fossil fuels.
• Ensure fuel diversity in electricity generation through diversification in power generation technologies that do not use hydrocarbon fuels.
• Prepare for emergency supply needs by developing a reserve stock of energy.
• Encourage diversification in fuel consumption in the transport sector.
• Facilitate the implementation of a nationwide electricity grid.

Major Aim: To increase national energy security.
Achievement: The use of renewable energy for power generation has started even before the National Energy Policy was endorsed and documented in 2010. Since the installation of first solar PV system in 2005, at present there is 2MW of electricity from renewable sources, out of 282 MW, which is the total installed capacity of Maldives. This accounts for 0.71% of RE in the installed capacity. More RE projects are on-going and others have been planned.

The supporting regulatory framework is being strengthened. Also, scaling up of renewable energy programme has been started. It is a great achievement that the largest RE plan, called the "Maldives Scaling up Renewable Energy Investment Plan" was developed successfully. It was endorsed in 2012 and it targets for 30 MW of RE for power generation by 2017.

Stakeholders: The policy is being implemented with the cooperation from all stakeholders involved. They are:

• Ministry of Environment and Energy(MEE): The Ministry appointed by the government to govern and manage the energy sector of the Maldives. Also it is mandated with formulating and implementation of the policies of the sector.
• Maldives Energy Authority(MEA): Semi-autonomous regulatory body affiliated to the Ministry of Environment and Energy. MEA is mandated with regulation of the sector such as making the regulations, issuing licenses etc.
• State Electric Company Limited (STELCO): State owned-utility which provides electricity service to the islands in Greater Male' region.
• FENAKA: State-owned utility which provides electricity to the outer islands.

Time Frame: This is a general policy with no particular time frame. However, it complements with the policy "achieving carbon neutrality in the energy sector by year 2020" and the "Maldives Scaling up Renewable Energy Investment Plan 2013-2017" which has defined time frames.

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