Energy Poverty Impacts Three Billion People. Time to Think Big.
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All Nations Need a High-Energy Future to Power Industrial and Commercial Development, Job Creation and Economic Growth.
But Small-Scale Solutions to Energy Poverty Can’t Build Competitive Economies. So the Hopes and Security of Billions are at Risk.
The Energy for Growth Hub Connects the Latest Research Directly with Policymaker Demand — To Fuel Prosperity for Everyone.
Featured Content
- PageWhy Energy is Everything — in 4 Unforgettable InfographicsLearn More
- ReportWho Decides Africa’s Net Zero Pathways? Five ways to fix how we model African energy transitions and why it matters for climate and developmentSummary To achieve an equitable global net zero future, lower-income and under-electrified countries must play a much bigger role in deciding how we get there.Learn More
- Op-Eds & ArticlesWhere are Africa’s Clean Energy Projects? A proactive agenda for the US GovernmentBLUF: The USG wants to fund as many new clean energy projects in Africa as possible, but the pool of bankable utility-scale generation projects is running dry.Learn More
- MultimediaEpisode #14 Ashvin Dayal: We Need to Redefine Energy & Development ProgressDayal, Senior Vice President of Power & Climate and The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet at The Rockefeller Foundation, discusses how he got into working on energy, why he believes in raising the definition of energy access, and the power of philanthropy. Ashvin Dayal leads The Rockefeller Foundation’s Power & Climate program, aimed at scaling up energy access and accelerating an inclusive energy transition in emerging markets.Learn More
Recent Posts
- Multimedia
Let's Aim for the Modern Energy Minimum
The world’s energy access definition is currently just 50-100 kWh per person per year, barely enough to power a small fan, a few lights, and maybe charge a cell phone.Continue Reading - Memo
Clean water from clean energy
How renewable energy can be a game-changer for Africa's desalination industry By 2050, it is expected that there will be at least 800 million Africans living in regions with acute water scarcity (where the renewable water resources capacity is less than 1000 m3/capita/year).1 A recent study on the potential growth of the desalination market in developing countries estimated the demand for desalination in Africa’s most water-scarce countries to reach 37 Mm3/day by 2050, satisfying total municipal water demand for urban populations; which is an increase of more than 1500% compared to the current installed capacity in these countries.1 FIGURE 1: Projected desalination capacity in sub-Saharan Africa’s most water-scarce countries by 2050 According to the FAO, the agricultural sector has the highest water demands in these regions, which makes desalination a key enabler for food security. African governments are already taking serious steps to develop more desalination plants.Continue Reading - Memo
Desalination: A future energy demand driver
Globally, nearly 2 billion people – about half of them in sub-Saharan Africa – lack access to safe drinking water.Continue Reading - Memo
Recognizing the energy access challenges of informal urban communities in Africa
Over one billion people globally are now estimated to live in slums or informal settlements.1 This population is growing as conflicts, natural disasters, and climate change fuel further displacement from rural areas.2 In sub-Saharan Africa, somewhere from 50-60% of the urban population of 200 million lives in informal communities that face structural barriers to securing legal access to the electricity grid. For residents of informal communities who cannot afford the connection fee or provide required tenancy documents (among other barriers), the only viable alternative is to connect informally through a local electrician.Continue Reading - Blog
How Might Clean Energy Feature at the White House Africa Summit?
Next week is make-or-break for the United States to show an actual alternative to Chinese-backed infrastructure. President Biden will host 49 African leaders December 13-15 in an orchestrated effort to show that the United States is no longer disengaged with the continent and to rebuild trust with a region where one in four people will live by mid-century.Continue Reading - Blog
Moving Beyond ‘All or Nothing’: Finding the Pragmatic Middle Ground on Gas in Africa
Europe’s energy crisis is aggravating a decades-old tension between the developed and the developing world. As wealthy countries increase natural gas imports (including from Africa), many of them are maintaining policies that restrict development finance for gas-fired infrastructure projects in poorer nations.Continue Reading - Blog
Hub vs Hub: The debate over development finance for natural gas is messy. Here are two pragmatic solutions.
The fight over when – or even whether – to use development finance for gas-fired power plants in poor countries has become overly contentious and counterproductive.Continue Reading - Memo
Making Nigeria’s energy transition plan a reality
Nigeria wants to achieve a net-zero emissions energy system In November 2021, at the United Nations climate change conference (COP26) held in Glasgow, President Muhammadu Buhari announced Nigeria’s commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.Continue Reading - Report
2022 Map of the Global Market for Advanced Nuclear: Emerging International Demand
Third Way and Energy for Growth Hub have been mapping the global market for advanced nuclear over the last few years, tracking both projected energy demand growth to midcentury and various metrics on civil nuclear “readiness” for countries around the world.Continue Reading - Blog
Will rising interest rates crush renewables in Africa?
We’ve worried that energy projects in Africa, especially renewables, were at risk from rising interest rates and an increasingly unstable global economy.Continue Reading