CLASP has identified 10 appliances that are critical to fighting climate change and improving people’s lives. Industrial Motors are one of them. They power our economies and consume a significant amount of the world’s industrial electricity demand—27%. The resulting high energy consumption leads to greenhouse gas emissions and can strain power grids.

In Indonesia, the industrial sector consumes nearly 45% of the country’s total energy. Much of this demand comes from equipment powered by electric motors, which is expected to rise as Indonesia’s local manufacturing grows.

Given energy-efficient motors’ ability to consume less electricity when performing a task, and transitioning global motor stock to modern, efficient models would have major environmental and social benefits. Higher efficiency motors offer a win-win solution.

Indonesia’s rapid industrial and economic growth is increasing the demand for commercial and industrial equipment. This makes improving the efficiency of motors embedded in pumps, fans, compressors, and conveyors a priority for national policy. However, there is limited information about the country’s current domestic motor market to guide policy development.

CLASP aims to fill this gap through a detailed market assessment of electric motors. The study will quantify the market’s size and composition, including motor sizes, brands, and efficiency levels, of Indonesia’s motor market and provide policymakers with reliable data to develop new national efficiency policies. This assessment is being conducted in coordination with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (EBTKE), and key motor brands and associations, including ABB, Siemens, TEKO, and Grundfos.

Low-efficiency, climate-harming room air conditioners are common across the Global South. This is due largely to a practice known as environmental dumping, which raises costs for consumers, strains national electric grids, and jeopardizes climate mitigation targets.

What is environmental dumping?

When appliances that don’t meet the regulatory standards of the countries where they are manufactured are export to countries with lower or no standards, this is considered environmental dumping.

Environmental dumping of room air conditioners is a common practice, resulting in high volumes of low-efficiency, high-global-warming potential (GWP) room air conditioners in countries that lack stringent room AC standards and refrigerant regulations.

This occurs across the Global South, as research by CLASP and the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) has revealed. Studies from Africa (2020) and Southeast Asia (2023) have confirmed that low-efficiency, high-GWP cooling appliances are prevalent in both regions.

CLASP participated in the fourth Modern Energy Cooking Forum (MECF 2025) in New Delhi on 26 September. The event brought together diverse stakeholders to work towards integrating electric cooking (e-cooking) into India’s energy and climate policies.

Globally, more than 2 billion people still rely on polluting fuels like wood, charcoal, kerosene, or coal as their main cooking fuel¹. In India, about 54% of households use traditional solid fuels, either as their main source of energy or alongside liquefied petroleum gas, contributing significantly to indoor air pollution². Dependence on solid fuels negatively impacts people’s quality of life. It harms people’s health through exposure to smoke and pollutants, and it also limits productivity and keeps households trapped in a never-ending cycle of labor-intensive chores.

Improving household access to e-cooking helps address these challenges while advancing energy and climate goals. Shifting to cleaner, more efficient electric cooking can help reduce respiratory illness symptoms and other health impacts, save households time and money, while freeing up hours spent on fuel collection and cooking. From a climate perspective, the widespread adoption of e-cooking can reduce emissions from the residential energy sector and contribute to India’s decarbonization goals.

At MECF 2025, Neha Dhingra, CLASP’s Director, India, shared CLASP’s approach for accelerating India’s clean cooking transition. The approach focuses on market-shaping activities:

• Policy and institutional collaborations: CLASP has a longstanding relationship with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and will continue working with government stakeholders to align policies, standards, and procurement with clean cooking solutions. These collaborations are critical to ensuring that solutions are available and supported by national policies.
• Evidence and risk reduction: By providing robust appliance performance data and consumer insights, CLASP helps policymakers, financiers, and companies make informed investments in e-cooking.
• Consumer awareness and demand: CLASP will continue supporting campaigns that highlight the tangible benefits of e-cooking, from household savings to improved air quality and safer kitchens.

With this approach, CLASP aims to ensure that clean cooking appliances are available, but also affordable, trusted, and widely adopted. Through our partnership with MECS and in collaboration with local partners like Finovista, CLASP will provide venture-building support to Indian manufacturers, help identify high-growth opportunities, refine business models, and develop strategic connections with funders and partners.

CLASP’s Sumedha Awasthy (Senior Associate, Clean Energy Access) and Jatin Mathur (Associate, Clean Energy Access) also contributed to a special session on research and innovation in e-cooking, demonstrating how policy, finance, and market-building can speed up the shift. Their presentation highlighted initiatives such as the Global Leap Awards and the Institutional E-Cooking Demo.

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About CLASP’s Industry Accelerator Program in Pakistan

A collaborative initiative between CLASP and SAMA^Verte, the Industry Accelerator is aimed at transforming Pakistan’s electric motor manufacturing sector. Launched in 2023, the program focuses on enhancing the energy efficiency of locally produced electric motors and modernizing production processes. By providing technical assistance, facilitating international knowledge exchange, and supporting the development of energy-efficiency standards, the Industry Accelerator seeks to reduce energy consumption, lower CO₂ emissions, and strengthen the competitiveness of Pakistan’s motor industry.

Hundreds of millions of people globally still live without access to electricity. That means no way to cool their homes during hot summers, refrigerate food to keep it fresh, cook without inhaling toxic fumes, or farm without hours of grueling, manual labor.

For decades, the response has focused on expanding energy infrastructure. But power lines alone can’t deliver the full benefits. A village may get connected, but without a fridge, a fan, or a clean cookstove, electricity access remains incomplete.

This is where efficient, affordable appliances come in. They transform energy into opportunity for better health, productivity, and livelihoods. They also improve the economics of grid expansion which makes investment more attractive and sustainable.

To achieve the goal of universal energy access and improve millions of lives, we need to look beyond electricity. Appliances are not a luxury; they are essential energy infrastructure.

To learn more, explore CLASP’s research report “The Missing Piece of Energy Access: Why 15% of Energy Infrastructure Investment Must go to Appliances”.

Globally, hundreds of millions of people lack electricity. Most solutions focus on extending power supply infrastructure, but in marginalized areas, low electricity demand makes the expense of such infrastructure hard to justify. Increasing the use of energy-efficient appliances in these areas can attract electricity supply investments while delivering climate benefits. Achieving sufficient levels of appliance use to meet these goals would require allocating 15% of supply-side investments, or $38 billion USD, toward demand growth between now and 2030. The funding should focus largely on improving appliance affordability.

Key Findings

• Energy-efficient appliances are essential energy infrastructure, critical for achieving universal energy access and meeting climate mitigation and adaptation goals.
• Bringing modern energy to the 666 million people who lack it (most of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa) requires expanding power infrastructure to places with low electricity consumption.
• Increasing appliance access across Africa could generate demand for 342 terawatt hours of electricity annually, creating a market worth approximately $50 billion USD that would catalyze accelerated power infrastructure development.
• Focusing on expanding markets for energy-efficient appliances (as opposed to standard, less-efficient appliances) would provide many benefits, including avoiding an estimated 2.6 gigatons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually.

Recommendations

• The IEA estimates that at least $50 billion USD of public investment annually is needed until 2030 to achieve universal energy access. CLASP analysis shows that 10–15% of this amount—about $7.5 billion USD annually, or $38 billion USD in total—should be devoted to improving appliance access.
• Relevant decisionmakers should allocate 10–15% of power supply-side investments toward establishing sustainable electricity demand growth.
• Public institutions should target investments to overcoming market failures that limit appliance use—in particular, a lack of affordability and consumer confidence.
• All stakeholders should prioritize energy-efficient appliances over standard, less-efficient appliances.

Until recently, most local motor manufacturers in Pakistan only tested the basic functionality of the motors they produced. A recent collaboration between CLASP and SAMA_Verte is helping local manufacturers improve motor efficiency testing.

Improved, state-of-the-art testing labs are at the heart of this transformation. Equipped with advanced tools like calibrated dynamometers, power analyzers, and thermal imaging, these labs are helping engineers identify energy losses, improve designs, and ensure compliance with new national regulations set by the National Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority (NEECA) in Pakistan.

With access to high-quality testing data, manufacturers are redesigning components, reducing energy losses by over 20%, and delivering motors that are more efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. Beyond individual products, these advancements are lifting the entire industry—with the potential to boost exports in the future, creating skilled jobs and opening doors to a more energy-efficient future.

A collaborative initiative between CLASP and SAMA^Verte, the Industry Accelerator is aimed at transforming Pakistan’s electric motor manufacturing sector. Launched in 2023, the program focuses on enhancing the energy efficiency of locally produced electric motors and modernizing production processes. By providing technical assistance, facilitating international knowledge exchange, and supporting the development of energy-efficiency standards, the Industry Accelerator seeks to reduce energy consumption, lower CO₂ emissions, and strengthen the competitiveness of Pakistan’s motor industry.