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
- PostRose Mutiso on TED: The energy Africa needs to develop — and fight climate changeRose Mutiso outlines how African countries need more energy, not less, to fight climate change and deserve the majority of the world's carbon budget to exercise their right to opportunity at the 2020 TED Countdown Conference. Watch her talk (6:42) 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
Sprinters, Coasters, and differentiating a Just Energy Transition: Why South Africa is more like Poland than Kenya
The term ‘developing countries’ has become passé, but it’s especially outdated for thinking about energy and climate. Grouping incredibly diverse societies together can be misleading, a problem that has struck me lately in reading about the energy transition and the frequent implicit or explicit use of South Africa and/or India as stand-ins for other countries across Asia, Africa, or Latin America. India obviously looms very large because of its scale, but is it really indicative of the economic development and energy transition issues faced by other countries? What about South Africa? Many countries are facing the dual challenge of (a) urgently providing infrastructure to enable job growth and higher incomes and also (b) managing decarbonization.Continue Reading - Memo
Power Outages in Growing Cities: Resulting Air Pollution and the Role of Regulation
The global population without electricity access (overwhelmingly located in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia) fell below 1 billion in 2018. But this have-or-have-not measure of access to electricity overlooks how much electricity people actually consume and how reliable the supply is (see more here by Todd Moss).1 Power outages are widespread in growing economies, making electricity unreliable -- even for those with ‘access.’ In addition to disrupting lives and hindering economic activity, outages indirectly cause air pollution issues.2,3 Back-Up Generators: a solution that creates more problems? During power outages, many firms and households turn to back-up diesel generators.Continue Reading - Blog
What the Texas power outages can teach us about Africa’s power future
The historic cold snap that led to widespread power outages across Texas was tragic and continues to be a dangerous situation for the millions affected.Continue Reading - Memo
Who in ASEAN is Ready for Nuclear Power?
Demand for electricity across the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will triple 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 - Blog
To Fight Poverty, We Must Raise Global Energy Ambitions
Originally appeared in a post on the Rockefeller Foundation's website, February 16, 2021. The world will not end extreme poverty without ending energy poverty.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Todd Moss on the Power Hungry Podcast
Power Hungry Podcast host Robert Bryce talks to Todd Moss about the challenges of electrification in Africa, the fuels that will likely play the biggest roles in that effort, and the Hub's proposal for a Modern Energy Minimum.Continue Reading - Memo
The Love-Hate Relationship with Self-Generation
Demand for reliable, affordable electricity is growing fast in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), but the power grids aren’t keeping up.1 Roughly one billion people globally with a grid connection experience over 1,000 hours of power outages per year (about 40 days), many of them in SSA.Continue Reading - Memo
Gas markets usually start with industrial applications
The challenge of anchoring nascent gas markets in the power sector Gas-fired power may seem like an attractive option for developing countries trying to expand their electricity supply, especially if they possess domestic gas resources.Continue Reading - Memo
Why is Ghana's Gas Sector Losing Money?
Ghana’s discovery of large quantities of oil and gas in 2007 promised to change the face of the country’s energy industry and drive economic growth through export and the development of new electricity generation capacity.Continue Reading - Blog
Africa is Not a (Coal) Country: A reply to Nature Energy
A recent paper in Nature Energy has grabbed headlines such as ‘Africa's green energy transition unlikely this decade' on the BBC.Continue Reading