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.

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.

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.

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.

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.