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

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.

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.

A global energy transition is under way. Its potential to redraw the landscape will be most profoundly felt in developing economies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Access to electricity and to 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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....

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....

Energy access is one of the keystone development metrics. But how do we define "access", and what limitations does this methodology have?

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.

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.

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.