Pre-COP Take: Why the New Collective Quantified Goal is a Big Deal
The Energy for Growth Hub | 4 November 2024 Next week, more than 32,000 people will descend on Baku, Azerbaijan for COP29, the annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Global climate negotiations can seem (and often are) procedural and empty. But their implications for the future of energy and infrastructure in emerging and developing economies are increasingly real — especially when it comes to finance. In fact, watchers have dubbed the conference in Baku “the Finance COP.” [Read more] |
Why banning financing for fossil fuel projects in Africa isn't a climate solution
The Conversation | 14 October 2021 Today’s global energy inequities are staggering. Video gamers in California consume more electricity than entire nations. The average Tanzanian used only one-sixth the electricity consumed by a typical American refrigerator in 2014. Globally, the top 10% of countries consume 20 times more energy than the bottom 10%. And 1.1 billion sub-Saharan Africans share the same amount of power generation capacity as Germany’s 83 million people. At least half have no access to electricity at all... [Read more] This piece was republished with permission in Yahoo News, phys.org, Undark, The Houston Chronicle, Asia Times, MENAFN, The Wire Science, Brink News, NewsDay Zimbabwe, and others. |
Lessons from the proliferating mini-grid incentive programs in Africa
Brookings Future Development | 11 December 2020 A few years ago, least-cost electrification models began pointing to an exciting possibility: solar and solar-diesel hybrid mini-grids could be the cheapest way to deliver reliable, on-demand electricity for hundreds of millions of people without power. This was especially promising for Sub-Saharan Africa, where the insolvency and dysfunction of national utility companies had led to slow progress in electrifying rural populations... [Read more] |
Disconnects between Minigrid Policy Stakeholders Keep Sector's Bankability at Bay
Greentech Media | 26 October 2020 The energy access minigrid sector is simultaneously a nascent market and a cleaner reprise of a familiar technology set’s debut role as the original building block of the modern grid, targeted at underserved populations. This duality positions the sector as a fundamental piece of the integrated electrification puzzle. But despite consistent business-model innovation, steep cost learning rates and a rapidly diversifying competitive landscape, minigrids are... [Read more] [Full text also available here] |
Minigrids are the missing piece in the integrated electrification puzzle
Greentech Media | 1 June 2020 Whether booming off-grid power demand in emerging markets is met with grid extension or distributed renewables will be central to the growth story of the global clean power sector. As the technological and financial toolbelt for providing affordable, reliable, appropriate, and clean power to every household and business continues to expand, deployments of off-grid, decentralized, renewable energy systems will take an increasingly larger bite out of... [Read more] |
WoodMac: Nearly $470M Invested into Off-Grid Energy Access Companies Last Year
Greentech Media | 12 March 2020 Companies providing off-grid energy access raised over $2.1 billion in corporate financing between 2010 and the end of 2019, including nearly $470 million last year, according to new research from Wood Mackenzie. An estimated 420 million people now use standalone off-grid solar globally, while another 47 million people rely on mini-grids for access to electricity, according to the World Bank and IFC... [Read more] |
In People and Dollars, Energy Access is Growing by Billions: GTM's Off-Grid Energy Access Forum Explores Why
NextBIllion | 13 September 2019 Previously ignored off-grid populations are quickly becoming a fundamental piece of the energy transition puzzle. There are several reasons for this significant shift. As energy access markets evolve and scale, off-grid energy provision will have increasingly significant impacts on power demand, grid extension and modernization investments, the siting of new generation sources, and future carbon emissions reduction pathways...[Read more] |
How Off-Grid Energy Access is Shaping the Energy Transition
Forbes | 4 March 2019 Providing access to clean and reliable energy to off-grid populations represents a massive market opportunity within the energy transition, and global energy players have started to take notice. Just under 1 billion people—about 13% of the current global population—still do not have access to electricity. Over 1 billion more do not have access to reliable power. Although 600 million people are expected to...[Read more] This piece was adapted from a Woodmac.com editorial, which can be found here: [Read more] |
10 Trends Shaping the Global Solar Market in 2019
Greentech Media | 22 January 2019 2018 was a year of upheaval for the global solar PV market. But even just a few weeks into 2019, there are positive signs for the global solar market. We’ve already seen policy clarity in China and Saudi Arabia, highly aggressive solar-plus-storage pricing in Hawaii, and more bold plans for some of the world’s largest single-site PV projects in India. Here are some thoughts on the top 10 trends to watch this year...[Read more] |
Distributed Models for Grid Extension Could Save African Utilities Billions of Dollars
Greentech Media | 13 June 2018 Where it’s beneficial, state utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa can leverage distributed private-sector business models to extend the grid to areas without electricity access or make critical upgrades —without going further into debt. In the industrialized world, public electric utilities in regulated markets are tasked with a universal service mandate, an obligation to extend and maintain service to all customers in their service territory. In contrast...[Read more] |
4 Ways the Mini-Grid Market Can Avoid the Cleantech Sector's Early Failures
Greentech Media | 6 June 2018 Remote mini-grids are finally starting to get the attention they deserve as a fundamental building block in efforts to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable electricity to customers beyond the grid's reach. As early-stage private investment begins to flow into the space, investors need to sidestep the inevitable hype and disappointment cycle, and re-align their expectations to see mini-grids for what they really are: long-term infrastructure projects...[Read more] |
Living Under the Grid: 110 Million of Africa's Unconnected Customers Represent a Massive Opportunity
Greentech Media | 8 December 2017 Almost half of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa have access to electricity. Urban electricity access rates are even higher, estimated at 76 percent in 2014. But these figures are dangerously deceptive. A recent World Bank study on infrastructure in Africa finds that take-up rates...[Read more] This piece was adapted for The Conversation Africa on 19 April 2018 [Read more]
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How Blockchains Will Help Connect Billions to Electricity and Financial Services
IEEE Spectrum | 27 November 2017 People are buying and trading digital coins at a frenetic pace in developing countries. With cryptocurrencies, people can conduct business, send money across borders, avoid regulation and taxation, and legitimize their informal economic activity—all without going through failed central banking systems.In these markets, cryptocurrencies are increasingly used for cheap, fast, and private transfers of value at the last mile. In recent months...[Read more] |
Sun Block: How Protectionism Could Dim the Solar Sector's Prospects
Foreign Affairs | 6 October 2017 U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported request to Oval Office staff to “bring me some tariffs” may soon be answered by an unlikely source: the solar power industry. In a recent decision on a case at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), commission members unanimously (4-0) decided to open the door to protectionist measures against crystalline solar panel imports from nearly every country. As of 2016, an estimated...[Read more] |
How Deregulation Could Improve Reliability for Cash-Strapped African Utilities
Greentech Media | 19 September 2017 Sub-Saharan African utilities are caught in a complex interplay between centralized grid-extension costs and the decentralized off-grid generation boom. Liberalizing their electricity markets may be a partial solution. While high demand growth and the need for investment drove dramatic electricity sector reform in low- and middle-income countries in the 1990s and early 2000s, Power for All and GTM Research find that...[Read more] |
A World Bank Group Solar Program May Unlock 1.2 GW of Utility-Scale Projects in Emerging Markets
Greentech Media | 16 August 2017 A solar program from the World Bank Group (WBG) will lead to over 1.2 gigawatts of competitively priced utility-scale solar PV in Zambia, Senegal, Ethiopia and Madagascar in the coming years, according to new research. Despite criticism from local developers, the program is a breakthrough risk mitigation and advisory mechanism that offers global solar developers a chance to secure a foothold in new markets with high growth potential and low rates of energy access...[Read more] |