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

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.

The mobile phone revolution is allowing countries to skip landlines, prompting many observers to assume countries might also skip building an electricity grid and jump right to distributed home energy systems (e.g., here and here). New disruptive technologies are exciting and alluring, especially in sub-Saharan markets where the unmet infrastructure needs are huge. After all, if you can charge your smartphone with a rooftop solar kit, then who needs power plants and a grid?

When we think about energy access, we tend to think about making sure everyone can light their homes and charge their mobile phones.

Last month, Todd Moss joined Dan Runde, Director of the Project on Prosperity and Development at CSIS, on his podcast series Building the Future. Todd discussed what led him to launch the Energy for Growth Hub, a new global network connecting research and policymakers to build high-energy systems.

Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies have the capability to revolutionize large-scale electrification planning. Advances in computer-based electrification planning models, satellite imaging, and machine learning are able to optimize infrastructure planning, lowering the costs of electricity provision and expediting progress.