Energy Poverty Impacts Three Billion People. Time to Think Big.
get our Latest Insights
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
- PostVarun Sivaram on TED: India's historic opportunity to industrialize using clean energyHub Fellow Varun Sivaram discusses how India has a historic opportunity to power its industrialization with clean energy, and proposes a plan for India to reimagine its economy with renewable energy at its heart at the 2020 TED Countdown Conference. Watch his talk (10:58) here, or below: Learn More
- ReportMapping the Global Market for Advanced NuclearThe Hub and Third Way collaborated to create a new interactive map that provides a first-of-a-kind ‘nuclear readiness’ assessment and electricity demand projections in 2050 for 148 countries.Learn More
- MemoIndonesia’s Power Goals: What’s next after universal electrification?The world’s fourth-most populous country is rapidly reaching universal electrification, with almost 99% of its more than 270 million people considered electrified. However, the sector is not without its problems. A major outage hit the greater Jakarta area in mid-2019, affecting over 30 million people and paralyzing the economy, while shorter blackouts are a common occurrence.Learn More
- MemoMapping Africa's approaches to power sector reformOver the past 30 years, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have introduced market-oriented reforms geared at addressing structural obstacles to power sector development.Learn More
Recent Posts
- Blog
How the Biden Administration should build on Power Africa, and Why
Given everything else happening these days, it’s easy to imagine a new administration putting international development policy on the back burner.Continue Reading - Memo
Who in Africa is Ready for Nuclear Power?
Demand for electricity across Africa will grow many times over by 2050. Nuclear power is a potential source of clean power to drive industrialization and growing incomes, especially with new smaller, safer, and more flexible designs expected to come to the market over the next decade.Continue Reading - Memo
Powering Africa’s Data Infrastructure: No Power, No Digital Transformation
COVID-19 makes a chronic issue more urgent ELECTRICITY ACCOUNTS FOR MORE THAN HALF OF DATA CENTER OPERATING COSTS Massive changes in how the world works, learns and does business have been made possible by the Internet and related information and communications technology (ICT).Continue Reading - Blog
What will the UK’s fossil fuel “ban” really mean for development?
At the recent UN Climate Ambition Summit, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a major policy announcement, a move being hailed as having made the UK “the first major industrialized nation to end all public finance for fossil fuel projects overseas.” But that isn’t exactly true. In fact, the policy makes (important) exceptions to enable energy for development in the world’s poorest countries, where climate change intersects with widespread energy poverty.Continue Reading - Blog
Infographic: What is sub-Saharan Africa’s contribution to global CO2 emissions?
One of the most striking infographics from the wonderful Our World in Data is the treemap which asks “Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions?” In the original version from Hannah Ritchie, sub-Saharan Africa is so small that only South Africa and Nigeria even warrant labels. So, with Hannah’s generous permission, we used her data to recreate a reconfigured graphic.Continue Reading - Blog
Why EIA’s universal access model for Africa (definitely) overstates coal and (likely) understates solar
How would the large-scale deployment of off-grid solar technologies affect the future of Africa’s power generation mix? This is a critical question for African governments and investors considering how and where to prioritize energy infrastructure -- and what impacts those decisions will have on poverty alleviation, economic growth, and climate. The US Energy Information Agency’s “Off-Grid Electricity Development in Africa” report lays out two potential pathways to achieve universal electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa1 by 2030: Relying solely on central grid systems results in a doubling of coal generation and a tripling of natural gas generation by 2050.Continue Reading - Memo
Coal's Future in Africa is Dim
As all regions transition to a cleaner energy future, coal-fired power is in the spotlight. As the region with the greatest shortages of energy, might Africa have a coal future? Coal-to-power today is very modest outside South Africa As of 2020, 34 coal-fired power plants totaling ~53GW of installed capacity provide about a third of all electricity produced on the African continent (see Table 1).Continue Reading - Multimedia
Coffee Break Briefing with Varun Sivaram: "US Energy Innovation and India’s future"
Hub Fellow Varun Sivaram discusses with Hub Policy Director Katie Auth what might be next for Mission Innovation as US energy and climate policy prepare for a reset in 2021, and what industrializing clean energy may look like in emerging markets such as India.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: " ‘Tis the season to be voting…" Todd Moss on The ARC Insider
ARC Insider hosts Karen Allen and Tara O'Connor are joined by Todd Moss to cover elections inside and outside of Africa with a particular focus on how the US election results might impact US-Africa relations. Listen to their full conversation here or below:Continue Reading - Blog
Xbox, Playstation, and global energy inequality
Americans take for granted 24/7 internet, cloud data storage, and on-demand air conditioning, all powered by abundant electricity. During the pandemic, many are taking solace in Netflix, Zoom, Call of Duty, Animal Crossing, or Among Us -- again requiring lots more electricity around the clock.Continue Reading