Africa
Move Over Coal. Renewables Can Power Economic Development in Malawi.
Malawi needs more energy. The electric grid of this African country of 19 million can currently meet around 520 MW of peak demand. In contrast, South Africa, with approximately three times the population, can meet a peak electricity demand around a hundred times that of Malawi. The result? Many Malawians…
How Pension Funds Can Help Electrify Africa
Almost 600 million people in Africa do not have access to electricity. Bringing them clean, affordable, and reliable electricity will require massive investment. At the same time, African pension funds are actively seeking to grow their assets under management (AUM) and diversify their asset portfolios. If these pension…
Achieving Universal Energy Access by 2030: An Integrated Approach
COVID-19 has magnified society’s inequities. It is crucial that we provide vaccines and essential healthcare to everyone. However, many countries face huge gaps in infrastructure development including a lack of access to electricity. This makes it impossible to turn on a light, let alone set up basic health clinics with…
Electrifying Nigerian Agriculture with Clean Minigrids to Improve Livelihoods
Note: This article first appeared on USAID’s Facebook Page, view here A new Power Africa study finds immediate opportunity to initiate and scale the productive use of energy from Nigerian minigrids by electrifying three prevalent agricultural processing activities: rice milling, grain flour milling, and cassava grating. For the…
An Equitable, Low-Carbon Way to End Global Energy Poverty
Today, a third of the world’s population still has unreliable power, or no access to electricity at all. As economies seek to recover from the prolonged impacts of COVID-19, distributed renewable energy offers an opportunity to reach the underserved and to power development.
