Energy Poverty Impacts Three Billion People. Time to Think Big.

Energy Poverty conventionally refers to the lack of household electricity. Over 1 billion people live without reliable sources of electricity — but a new group seeks to change how we think about energy poverty. We kick off talking about energy poverty–specifically why the traditional definition of that term may be an inadequate understanding of the problem.

This Memo was drafted in collaboration with Patrick Okigbo of Nextier Advisory In 2016, Nigeria signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) worth US$2.5 billion with 14 independent power producers (IPPs) to build a total 1,125 megawatts of installed solar capacity for the national grid.

When natural gas is brought to the surface but cannot easily be used, it is burned for disposal or “flared.” Flaring mainly happens when gas is produced as a byproduct of oil extraction.

As the country of Ghana approaches universal access, we examine Ghana's power sector goals.

About half of the world’s employed people working outside agriculture are in the informal economy. Because this diverse sector exists outside the rules and formal administration, little is understood about the current and future power needs of urban informal economies.

Given pervasively high electricity tariffs across the region and rapidly falling CAPEX costs, utility-scale solar may be a profitable cornerstone solution to Sub-Saharan Africa’s energy needs. But large-scale solar projects face major execution barriers that cause high pipeline attrition.

Originally posted on World Economic Forum.  Africa is urbanizing faster than any other continent, at a rate of 4% every year, compared to the global average of 2%.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a small, focused US agency which provides assistance to countries that (a) promote economic freedom, (b) rule justly, and (c) invest in people. Learn how it invests in the power sector.

The World Bank’s Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) is a set of indicators intended “to help compare national policy and regulatory frameworks for sustainable energy.” Morgan Bazilian discusses key takeaways.

Can Africans increase their access to energy faster and more broadly through an on-grid or an off-grid approach? Practitioners, advocates and academics who work in the African energy space often fixate on this debate. But the 600 million people without access to electricity in Africa (and yes, it’s still 600 million) would likely prefer a little less debate and a lot more action.