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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
- ReportA Case Study of Ghana’s Power Purchase AgreementsGhana’s electricity sector faces an urgent crisis of immense financial strain that calls for a new, more transparent approach for contracting power in the future.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
Infographic: Visualizing Africa’s emissions and poverty in the world
How we aggregate global data affects how we talk about it, and -- more importantly -- what we do about it.Continue Reading - Memo
Five Low-hanging Fruits in Indian Electricity
Electricity generation in India has risen almost ten-fold since 1985, a dramatic increase leading to a surplus of capacity. Despite this technical surplus, and the claim of “universal village electrification,” 240 million people in the country continue to lack any access to electricity, with the remaining population experiencing regular blackouts, voltage fluctuations and other distribution-related problems.1 Since generation isn’t the issue, what is? The transmission and distribution (T&D) sectors face massive technical constraints and corruption issues - close to 25% of all power generated in India is lost to theft, corruption, and malfunctioning infrastructure.Continue Reading - Report
Going Big on Power Africa: Fortifying the Initiative for Today's Urgent Challenges
10 Recommendations to enhance Power Africa’s impact on energy poverty, economic development, and climate change The US Government’s Power Africa initiative grew out of a bipartisan commitment to addressing energy poverty.Continue Reading - Memo
The impact of self-generation on firms
As availability and quality of grid-based electricity services remain abysmal in many parts of Africa, homes and businesses have sought coping strategies to mitigate the adverse economic impacts of service interruptions.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Sub-Saharan Africa needs fair access to global carbon budget
Originally appeared in a World Economic Forum post, March 22, 2021 The majority of western funding institutions have pledged to stop financing fossil fuel projects overseas. Yet western economies are benefiting from Africa's natural gas resources – this contradiction must be addressed. African nations deserves an adaptation-first energy strategy to level the playing field and build a green economy. The West’s approach to climate prioritizes emissions mitigation and energy austerity, which is exactly the opposite of an adaptation-first energy-abundance strategy that vulnerable African nations need. Africa’s energy poverty is staggering.Continue Reading - Memo
Harnessing Mozambique’s Gas Wealth to Address Energy Poverty
Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries with a GDP per capita under $500, is also home to Africa’s third largest confirmed reserves of natural gas.Continue Reading - Memo
Firm electrification is a continent-wide issue: evidence from the Maghreb
Firms across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) view power outages as significant obstacles to productivity, and firms in the Maghreb share this concern, despite better infrastructure and greater government capacity.Continue Reading - Report
A Case Study of Ghana’s Power Purchase Agreements
Ghana’s electricity sector faces an urgent crisis of immense financial strain that calls for a new, more transparent approach for contracting power in the future.Continue Reading - Memo
A planner’s guide to acquiring building locations data
Planning efficient, least-cost electricity infrastructure can benefit from using modern tools to gather improved information describing areas of interest. Building location data in the form of latitude and longitude coordinates are important when outlining the most efficient ways to electrify an area with limited resources.Continue Reading - 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 - Report
Raising Global Energy Ambitions: The 1,000 kWh Modern Energy Minimum
Energy is fundamental to modern living and any competitive prosperous economy. SDG7 calls for modern energy for all, but the indicator for tracking progress against this goal is meeting a very low level of residential electricity consumption.Continue Reading - Multimedia
What is the Modern Energy Minimum?
The Modern Energy Minimum proposal calls for a higher, more inclusive level of electricity consumption as a better access metric to raise global energy ambitions. Learn about it in our video (1 min 40 secs):Continue Reading - 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 - Memo
What are Africa’s ‘Zombie Utilities’?
Utilities are among the most cited obstacles to functioning, modern power systems in Sub Saharan Africa’s emerging economies. While the challenges each country faces are unique, “zombie utilities” are common and typically characterized by five traits: 95% IN SSA, 95% OF UTILITIES DO NOT RECOVER FULL COSTS, AND ONLY 50% COVER OPERATING COSTS Operates at a loss.Continue Reading - Memo
Power Sector Structures in South Asia
Over the past 30 years, most countries in South Asia have introduced market-oriented reforms geared at addressing structural obstacles to power sector development.Continue Reading - Memo
Mapping Africa's approaches to power sector reform
Over the past 30 years, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have introduced market-oriented reforms geared at addressing structural obstacles to power sector development.Continue Reading - Memo
Is Ghana’s Dumsor Over?
‘Dumsor,’ which means ‘off-on’ in the Akan language, has become a household name for the persistent and erratic power outages in Ghana.Continue Reading - Post
Rose Mutiso on TED: The energy Africa needs to develop — and fight climate change
Rose 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: Continue Reading - Post
Varun Sivaram on TED: India's historic opportunity to industrialize using clean energy
Hub 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: Continue Reading - Multimedia
Coffee Break Briefing with Jessica Lovering and Third Way's Jackie Kempfer: "Mapping the Global Market for Advanced Nuclear"
Advanced nuclear has the potential to help meet both future energy demand and climate goals. But is this technology just for rich countries? And which countries are really going to be ready? To help answer these questions, the Hub and our friends at Third Way created the first-ever interactive map of nuclear readiness and projected electricity demand out to 2050 for 148 countries.Continue Reading - Report
Mapping the Global Market for Advanced Nuclear
The 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.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: "A Zombie-Free Recovery of Africa's Energy Sector" on Into Africa by CSIS
Energy development is at the heart of an inclusive African recovery from Covid-19, but how can we supercharge the region's power sector? Todd Moss (Energy for Growth Hub), Rose Mutiso (Energy for Growth Hub; Mawazo Institute), and Kate Steel (Nithio) join host CSIS Judd Devermont to discuss the future of Africa's energy sector, South Africa's struggling diplomacy in Zimbabwe, and key challenges facing African think tanks. Tune in below, or with CSIS here.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Coffee Break Briefing with Katie Auth: "Power Africa's Future"
Hub Policy Director Katie Auth examines Power Africa, including lessons learned for the next phase in the fight against energy poverty and how the initiative may inform U.S.Continue Reading - Blog
New database release: RACE measures how unreliability drives true power costs
Last fall, the Energy for Growth Hub proposed a new metric, reliability-adjusted cost of electricity or RACE, to estimate the effective cost paid by firms for reliable electricity.Continue Reading - Report
New Pilot Database: Understanding the RACE Metric
Reliability-adjusted cost of electricity (RACE) estimates the cost of industrial tariffs for grid power plus the additional cost of backup generation, weighted for how often grid power is unavailable. This incorporates data for: Tariff price.Continue Reading - Blog
How the DFC’s New Energy Investments in Mozambique Show the Agency’s Balanced Approach
Originally appeared in a Center for Global Development post, September 16, 2020 In its latest batch of investments around the world, the DFC has approved two sizable energy projects in Mozambique.Continue Reading - Memo
Indonesia’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.Continue Reading - Memo
3.5 Billion People Lack Reliable Power
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 commits the world to ending energy poverty by “ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030.” The dominant measurement of progress against SDG7 is the access rate, which measures the number of people with basic household electricity.Continue Reading - Blog
Announcement: Katie Auth is the Hub’s new Policy Director
I’m thrilled to welcome Katie Auth to the Hub as our first-ever Policy Director. Katie brings years of practical experience working at the nexus of energy and development in both the U.S.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Measuring “Reasonably Reliable” access to electricity services
From Electricity Journal (August 2020) While the electricity access rate is regularly measured in most countries, there are no routinely tracked metrics that measure reliability.Continue Reading - Memo
The problem with Kenya Power’s revenue model in three graphs
Kenya Power is one of the largest electric utilities in Africa, connecting more than 7.5 million customers.1 Like many utilities the world over, Kenya Power struggles with fully recovering operating costs.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Why Hasn’t Africa Gone Digital?
Originally appeared in a Scientific American post, August 11, 2020 COVID-19 has spurred massive changes in how the world works, learns and does business—changes made possible by the internet and digital infrastructure. But without power, there is no internet.Continue Reading - Blog
What happens to global emissions if Africa triples down on natural gas for power?
What exactly is Africa’s role in climate mitigation? We already know that the entire continent accounts for just 3% of cumulative CO2 emissions.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Jessica Lovering on The Power Hungry Podcast
Jessica Lovering talks with Power Hungry host Robert Bryce about her work with The Energy For Growth Hub on nuclear power for emerging economies, the challenges facing the nuclear sector, the advantages of small modular reactors, and why they have the potential to be, as she put it, the “iPhone of nuclear reactors.” Listen to their discussion here, or below. Continue Reading - Multimedia
Coffee Break Briefing with Rose Mutiso: "How will Africa’s Power Sector Recover?"
Hub Research Director Rose Mutiso proposes a post-COVID agenda for Africa's power sector that doesn’t simply revert to the old status quo.Continue Reading - Memo
Back to Basics: Tech entrepreneurs in Nigeria need a cheap, reliable and continuous supply of electricity
Nigeria has one of the most rapidly growing tech sectors on the continent, fueled by a robust supply of high-skill workers and venture capitalists looking for new markets.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
12 reasons why natural gas should be part of Africa's clean energy future
Originally appeared in a World Economic Forum (WEF) post, July 23, 2020. Several high-profile financiers of emerging markets infrastructure, such as the UK government, are actively considering a blanket ban on fossil fuels that would preclude any new projects involving natural gas.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Coffee Break Briefing with Jay Taneja: "What’s Happening to Electricity Demand in Africa?"
Hub Fellow and Assistant Professor at UMass-Amherst Jay Taneja walks us through the latest trends with the most up-to-date satellite data in our first ever Coffee Break Briefing.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
SE4All: A post-COVID agenda for a 'zombie-free' recovery of Africa's power markets
Originally appeared in a Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) post, July 21, 2020 COVID-19 and the global recession are a gut-punch to Africa’s battle against energy poverty.Continue Reading - Blog
Is nuclear power only for wealthy countries?
The debate over which countries should pursue nuclear energy is timely because the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is considering lifting its prohibition on financing nuclear power projects.Continue Reading - Memo
How electrification causes industrialization: Lessons from Indonesia
Investing in electrification has long been considered an essential ingredient for industrial development, and ultimately growth. In practice, the evidence is mixed, and can vary substantially across different contexts.Continue Reading - Blog
Is Nuclear Power Pro-Development? Six reasons why the DFC should lift its ban
The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is considering a change to its current ban on financing projects with a nuclear reactor, a relic holdover policy from its predecessor agency OPIC.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Todd Moss: "Growing the Power Grid in Africa" on Resources Radio
Host Daniel Raimi talks with Todd Moss on efforts to build electricity capacity across Africa, as well as economic and political hurdles that complicate the expansion of power.Continue Reading - Memo
Six Ways to Improve Nigeria’s Crumbling Transmission Network
Written in collaboration with Nextier Advisory Context: Nigeria’s transmission network has long been a weak link in the country’s electricity value chain.Continue Reading - Blog
India gets creative to power the next phase of its renewable energy transition
In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, 2020 is shaping up as a pivotal year in India’s transition toward renewable energy. Over the prior decade, India dramatically accelerated its deployment of wind and solar power (see figure). Now it must grapple with the challenges of integrating ever-larger quantities of volatile renewable energy into its grid. In the first half of 2020, the government has successfully concluded two creative tenders for flexible renewable energy that represent steps in the right direction—even though serious challenges remain to keep India’s energy transition on track.Continue Reading - Memo
Economic Benefits of Natural Gas Production: The Case of Ghana’s Sankofa Gas Project
Ghana is fast approaching 100% electrification, but continues to battle with irregular electrical power supply. In 2014, Ghanaians experienced severe power outages -- known as “dumsor” -- with the productivity losses estimated at 2 percent of GDP.1,2 Reliability has since improved but hydropower remains vulnerable to erratic rainfall (for generation via the Bui, Kpong and Akosombo dams) and thermal power is subject to volatile oil prices and inconsistent gas supply from the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP).3 Domestic natural gas production could provide reliable and low cost electricity for Ghana, if it can be developed.Continue Reading - Memo
Too big to succeed? Africa’s clean energy mega-projects
When it comes to deploying renewables for Africa’s urgent need for a high-energy future, big is indeed beautiful -- and necessary. But history suggests that proposing massive coordinated infrastructure projects as quick fix/catch-all solutions to a country or region’s energy challenges is far less straightforward than the alternative: fostering a market for utility-scale renewables. Supersizing project ambitions beyond the capacity limits of governments, utilities, and grids may not ultimately be the fastest or most cost-effective path to achieving infrastructure goals.Continue Reading - Q&A
Solar's Future, India's Mega-Market, and Why Saying No Isn't a Viable Energy Strategy: Q&A with Varun Sivaram
Varun Sivaram heads anyone’s short list of global solar power experts. A physicist, best-selling author and clean energy technology expert with experience spanning the corporate, policy and academic sectors, Sivaram was most recently the CTO of ReNew Power, India’s largest renewable energy firm. His 2018 book, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet, was heralded by the Financial Times as “the best available overview of where the industry finds itself today, and a road map for how it can reach that brighter future.”Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Todd Moss on the Climate Solutions Series by CSIS
In the second session of the Climate Solutions Series features experts Jesse Jenkins (Princeton University), Sue Tierney (Analysis Group), Chris Shelton (AES; AES Next); and Todd Moss (Energy for Growth Hub) for a discussion of the important themes and issues facing the power sector in the context of decarbonization.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Jessica Lovering on The Weeds
One of our Hub Fellow's, Jessica Lovering, joins Matt Yglesias to discuss the role of advanced nuclear in combatting climate change.Continue Reading - Memo
Impact of Self-Generation on Willingness to Pay
Electricity systems across many developing countries face tariffs set below cost recovery, typically due to social and political pressures. Utilities are often stuck, because the energy infrastructure in most frontier markets is insufficient or decrepit, and non-cost-reflective tariffs mean these utilities are chronically low on cash-flow and usually unable to attract significant private investment. Tariff reform is usually seen as a crucial step toward making the electricity system sustainable and luring capital for further enhancements to boost quality and reliability.Continue Reading - Memo
How Advanced Nuclear Technologies Could Accelerate Deployment Across Africa
In early 2020, the United Arab Emirates will start up the massive 5.6 GW Barakah nuclear power plant, the first country in nearly a decade to successfully start a new nuclear power program.Continue Reading - Memo
Why Energy Demand Demands More Attention
If you were planning to open a coffee shop in your neighborhood, you would want to know how many cups your potential customers might consume each day.Continue Reading - Blog
Our latest thoughts on Kenya’s power sector challenges
Kenya is the epicenter of Africa’s energy transition. The country is now the world’s 8th largest geothermal power producer, has the continent’s largest wind farm, a vibrant offgrid energy market, and an aggressive last mile campaign to connect every citizen.Continue Reading - Memo
Energy priorities in high-performing ASEAN
ASEAN countries are a diverse group of countries at different stages of economic development and with different energy challenges. Some members, like Singapore and Brunei are high electricity consumption markets, while Myanmar and Cambodia are very low consumers and still working to deliver universal access. Fast economic growth and aggressive electrification efforts will drive higher demand, which is expected to more than double electricity consumption by 2040.1 The region’s current electricity production is over 80% fossil fuels, a trend poised to make ASEAN one of the largest contributors to global warming.2 At the same time, ASEAN is also at great risk of the impacts of climate change, with some members poorly equipped to cope with its effects without solving its electrification constraints.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Big data and the electricity sector in African countries
From World Development Perspectives (January 2020) A number of “disruptive” data science and sensor technologies are creating new opportunities for addressing global challenges.Continue Reading - Memo
LCOE and its Limitations
LCOE = {(overnight capital cost * capital recovery factor + fixed O&M cost)/(8760 * capacity factor)}+(fuel cost * heat rate)+(variable O&M cost)[1] What is the Levelized Cost of Electricity? LCOE is the net present value of the unit-cost of electricity over the lifetime of a system. Pros of LCOE Simple.Continue Reading - Memo
Three Top Priorities for Nigeria’s 2020 Power Agenda
Successive interventions, including privatization, have not yet resolved Nigeria’s persistent power sector challenges. This year, the newly-appointed Honorable Minister of Power will continue on the path towards achieving key power sector goals, namely increased reliability and reduced revenue loss.Continue Reading - Memo
Could natural gas help India exit coal?
Context: Energy demand in India is forecast to double between now and 2040 as the country strives to improve living standards for its population of over 1.3 billion.Continue Reading - Memo
Power-to-gas for long-term energy storage
Summary High penetration of variable renewables requires short-term and seasonal storage A promising option is to use excess renewable power to produce hydrogen or “synthetic natural gas” which can be stored for later usage. Power-to-gas needs much of the same infrastructure as gas-to-power, thus limiting risks of climate stranded assets.Continue Reading - Report
PPA Watch
Coming soon...Continue Reading - Memo
How big is Nigeria's power demand?
Context: Nigeria has Africa’s largest population and economy, but Nigerians consume 144 kwh per capita annually, only 3.5% as much as South Africans.1 With only 12 GW installed, and typically just one-third of that delivered, Nigerian power production falls far short of demand, which is a primary constraint on economic growth.Continue Reading - Memo
Reflections on Nigeria’s Power Sector Privatization
Nigeria’s power sector was unbundled and partially privatized to establish a competitive market intended to improve management and efficiency, attract private investment, increase generation, and provide reliable and cost-efficient power supply.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
WEF: The 5 mistakes we’re making in the fight against global energy poverty
From the World Economic Forum: Energy consumption, in all its many forms, enables everything from how we live, eat and move, to how we work and communicate.Continue Reading - Blog
Jessica Lovering: Three Surprises from Talking Nuclear in Nigeria
I’ve written on Nigeria’s nuclear power ambitions before (here and here), but last month marked my first visit to the country.Continue Reading - Report
The Reliability-Adjusted Cost of Electricity (RACE): A new metric for the fight against energy poverty
Adequately tracking progress against energy poverty requires a metric that is more closely tied to income and employment than the commonly-used household access rate.Continue Reading - Memo
Saving Lives and Generating Energy from Natural Gas in Rwanda's Lake Kivu
Danger and possibility under Lake Kivu Beneath the surface of the lake lies 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of methane gas and 300 bcm of carbon dioxide originating from local volcanic activity.1 Without intervention, a gas eruption could occur within the next century.2 Located between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, over 2 million people live on the shores of the lake.Continue Reading - Memo
Big Solar Bankability & Utility Performance Can Benefit from Power Pools
High power generation costs in Sub-Saharan Africa are driven by stark imbalances in supply and demand, poor utility performance, and constraints on independent power producers.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
OneZero: Global Energy Inequality Goes Deeper Than Bitcoin
From OneZero: Modern life is amazingly energy intensive. All those computers, data servers, and air conditioners devour a lot of electricity.Continue Reading - Memo
For wind and solar, big is (usually) better
Dramatic cost reductions in wind and especially solar power seem to promise a distributed energy future. Grid-connected rooftop solar lets any home or industrial facility become a “prosumer” that produces electricity as well as consuming it.Continue Reading - Memo
Power Africa’s Top Obstacles in Each Market
Power Africa is a multi-agency US government initiative that aims to increase generation capacity and expand access to energy in Africa. The USAID-coordinated program aligns its support and activities by tackling the most pressing obstacles to power projects and private investment in each market.Continue Reading - Memo
The Eskom Crisis: What are we dealing with?
Eskom, South Africa’s state-owned power company, is in an existential crisis. Problems at Eskom have regional reverberations because it is the continent’s largest utility and trades power with seven countries. More than a decade of mismanagement, governance failure, spiralling costs, and the accumulation of unmanageable debt has put Eskom into a death spiral.Continue Reading - Memo
Costs of unreliable electricity to African firms
The availability and reliability of electricity services is crucial for economic development because of electricity’s role as a powerful engine of social and economic change.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Bloomberg: Africa’s Cities Are About to Boom – and Maybe Explode
From Bloomberg: Africa is rural. Or that’s what senior Western officials envision when they talk about the continent. America’s top diplomat for the region, Tibor Nagy, recently said that Africa is “by and large an agricultural society.” He isn’t alone: Germany’s recent Marshall Plan with Africa insists that “rural areas will determine Africa’s future.” This is wrong.Continue Reading - Blog
Bitcoin, gaming and the chasm of global energy inequality
Will Bitcoin cook the planet? A great Axios piece “No, Bitcoin won't destroy our climate by 2033” argues that carbon emissions from the substantial energy consumption of bitcoin mining isn’t likely to significantly contribute to global warming.Continue Reading - Memo
Waste-to-Energy: one solution for two problems?
Incinerating organic waste is the most common method of producing energy from municipal solid waste. While this approach is significantly more costly than landfills, waste-to-energy (WTE) can make economic sense in areas where there are energy deficits and/or a shortage of landfill space.Continue Reading - Memo
Four Meta-Challenges to Power Sector Reform in Sub-Saharan Markets
Sub-Saharan African countries urgently need more electricity services to foster economic growth and job creation. While plugging the energy gap is not sufficient to address all the region’s economic woes, it is a fundamental building block to the wider aspirations of these societies.Continue Reading - Memo
The Future of Bangladesh’s Power Sector
While the country will likely achieve universal access soon, load-shedding is still a common occurrence and a major obstacle to economic activity. In order to prepare for a population that will be far bigger (200 million or more by 2050) and aspires to be richer (aiming for Developed Country status by 2041), the government plans to build a total of 60 gigawatts (GW) of new generation by 2041.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Scientific American: How a Key Energy Technology Can Help Developing Countries
From Scientific American: A global energy transition is under way. Its potential to redraw the landscape will be most profoundly felt in developing economies.Continue Reading - Memo
India’s Next Generation of Electricity Priorities
India, already the third largest electricity producer in the world, is rapidly expanding its power sector. In 2017, India alone accounted for a quarter of the rise in global power demand and is projected to more than triple its electricity consumption by 2040.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Todd Moss on Resources Radio
Host Daniel Raimi of Resources For the Future talks with Todd Moss. They cover two major topics: avoiding the so-called "oil curse" in the nation of Guyana, and supporting economic growth in the developing world by improving energy access for businesses and industries. Listen to the whole Podcast below or here.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Todd Moss on Breakthrough Dialogues
It is universally true that all rich countries use a lot of energy. This might make you think about in-home systems: refrigerators, lights, etc.Continue Reading - Report
Working Group: America’s Global Infrastructure Opportunity
The launch of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (USDFC) in October 2019 is an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate capital flows into emerging and frontier markets in support of U.S.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Axios Voices: Global energy programs expand access but aim too low on goals
From Axios: Electrification initiative Power Africa has been faulted in a USAID Inspector General report for overstating the impact of its development efforts by counting the delivery of solar lanterns as new electricity connections. Why it matters: Accurate measures of progress are essential for reaching the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7: to ensure reliable and affordable energy worldwide by 2030.Continue Reading - Memo
The Virtuous Cycle of Clean Cooking and Electricity Costs
Access to electricity and clean cooking solutions are separate objectives of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7). Programs tackling these aims have been largely disconnected, however new research identifies virtuous cycles from their joint consideration: increasing electric cookstove penetrations increases electricity consumption, lowers electricity unit-costs through the realization of economies of scale, and improves the viability of electric cookstoves, continuing the cycle.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
SSIR: Scaling Power for Global Prosperity
More than a billion people worldwide live without access to basic electricity: One in every six people on Earth doesn’t have enough energy at home for indoor lighting or even to charge a mobile phone. But as appalling as that figure is, it has misled policy-makers, nonprofits, and funders about the true extent of global energy poverty.Continue Reading - Memo
The ABC's of Power Africa
Context: Power Africa is a US government electrification initiative. With over $50 billion in aggregate commitments since its creation in 2013, it is one of the world’s largest public-private development partnerships.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Todd Moss with Mark Goldberg of UN Dispatch
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.Continue Reading - Memo
How to Resolve the Tariff Disputes Blocking Nigeria’s Solar Project Pipeline?
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.Continue Reading - Memo
Gas Flaring: Why does it happen and what can stop it?
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.Continue Reading - Memo
Ghana’s Energy Goals: What next after universal access?
As the country of Ghana approaches universal access, we examine Ghana's power sector goals.Continue Reading - Memo
Power and the Urban Informal Economy
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.Continue Reading - Memo
Top 10 Barriers to Utility-Scale Solar in Sub-Saharan Markets
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.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
WEF: Is sub-Saharan Africa ready for the electric vehicle revolution?
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%.Continue Reading - Memo
MCC Compacts and the Power Sector
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.Continue Reading - Memo
Energy Access Metrics in the World Bank’s RISE Data
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.Continue Reading - Blog
For Africa, it's Grid + Off-grid, not Grid vs. Off-grid
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.Continue Reading - Blog
Infographic - Are We Learning the Right Energy Lesson from Mobile Phones? The Energy Iceberg Says No
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?Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Todd Moss Talks Energy for Growth with CGD
When we think about energy access, we tend to think about making sure everyone can light their homes and charge their mobile phones.Continue Reading - Multimedia
Podcast: Todd Moss on Electrifying Africa’s Future
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.Continue Reading - Memo
Empowered Planning with Models, Satellites, & Machine Learning
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.Continue Reading - Memo
Competitive Auctions and Ultra-Low Solar Bids
The global record low tariff for a utility-scale solar PV project has been broken seven times since 2016, all within auction environments, with recent leading bids dipping below US $0.02/kWh, and average prices pushing past the cost-competitive range with coal and gas.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
CNN: More affordable electricity would transform Africa. Here's how to get there.
Originally posted in CNN Business: It's no surprise that economies around the world need electricity for economic growth and job creation — not just for keeping the lights on.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
ERSS: Signalling, governance, and goals: Reorienting the United States Power Africa initiative
Originally in Energy Research & Social Science: Power Africa, the United States’ effort to boost electrification on the continent launched in 2013, has made an impressive start.Continue Reading - Memo
The Seven Major Threats to Kenya’s Power Sector
Kenya is one of the few African countries that produces more electricity than it consumes. Despite this progress, many households still lack access, those with connections experience poor quality, while reliability stifles economic growth.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Foreign Affairs: Can Nigeria Solve Its Energy Crisis?
Nigeria is home to one in every five Africans and it has the continent’s largest economy. More than half of Nigerians are under 20 years old. Whether all these bright young people will drive growth or generate instability depends largely on whether Nigeria’s economy can produce jobs for them. And Nigeria won’t be able to create jobs at the required pace until it solves its energy crisis.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Hindustan Times: Consumers upfront in tale of two reforms in Andhra Pradesh
From the Hindustan Times: Ashwini K Swain, one of the authors of Mapping Power, examines Andhra Pradesh’s game-changing plans to improve electricity access without increasing costs for consumers.Continue Reading - Memo
Five Electricity Policy Priorities for Nigeria
Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, but also has one of the widest energy gaps in the world. With a quickly growing population, Nigeria urgently needs to improve its power sector.Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
Scientific American: To End Poverty, Increase Access to Energy
Board Member Tisha Schuller and Advisor Seth Levey write in Scientific American: We have come to understand that energy is among the most important anti-poverty tools....Continue Reading - Op-Eds & Articles
SSIR: Why Energy Philanthropy Is High-Impact Philanthropy
Board Member Rachel Pritzker writes in the Stanford Social Innovation Review: Imagine living permanently without power. What would this mean for your health, for your children’s education, for your livelihood....Continue Reading - Memo
Measurements of Energy Access: A better way?
Energy access is one of the keystone development metrics. But how do we define "access", and what limitations does this methodology have?Continue Reading - Memo
Job Creation and Energy in Africa
Africa needs jobs. Jobs require energy. A low energy future is a jobless future. If millions of young Africans and their families are to escape poverty and have a more stable and prosperous future, the challenges of large-scale power must be solved.Continue Reading - Reading List
Best Open Sources for Research and Documents on Electricity in Nigeria
Nesistats: Began in 2015 (and made public in 2017) as an initiative of the Advisory Power Team in the Office of the Vice President to share vital statistics, reports, projects on the power sector, as part of the Power Sector Recovery Programme in Nigeria. NERC: The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) online library provides useful documents, data, and reports on the electricity sector. NBET: The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) company provides industry and market data as well as working papers on the power sector. Energy Mix Report: an energy publication, news service and resource centre for industry professionals with a primary focus on the Nigerian energy sector. PSRP Brochure: Provides overview of Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP) Nigeria Electricity Hub: An online portal that provides a variety of platforms for the analysis and dissemination of power sector-related information and dialogues. Gas Generation: http://www.nigeriaelectricityhub.com/download/gas-power-generation/ Hydro Generation: http://www.nigeriaelectricityhub.com/download/hydro-power-generation-report/ Solar Generation: http://www.nigeriaelectricityhub.com/download/solar-power-generation-report/ Transmission: http://www.nigeriaelectricityhub.com/download/transmission-fixing-the-weakest-link/ Distribution: http://www.nigeriaelectricityhub.com/download/distribution-addressing-the-final-link/ Journals: Audu, E., Paul, S.O.Continue Reading - Memo
Gas-to-Power Value Chain
Many countries have vast gas resources, but too often they are squandered or simply exported rather than used domestically. Our gas lead, Mark Thurber, describes what is necessary to fix the gas-to-power value chain.Continue Reading