Global South
Schools Stronger than Storms
One year ago, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, causing the largest power outage in US history. Puerto Ricans, on average, suffered without electricity for three months, many for almost a year, as recovery officials struggled to repair what was already a poorly maintained and inefficient electrical grid. This prolonged power…
Part Two—Critical Facilities: Where Government and Utility Services Redefine Resilience
In the first part of this two-part series (available here), we explored how the 2017 hurricane season left thousands of homes, businesses, and critical services across the Caribbean in the dark for extended periods of time, and how little benefit backup generators bring to the region’s electrical systems. We…
Part One—Critical Facilities: Where Government and Utility Services Redefine Resilience
Do people really care about electricity? Or do they just care about all the services electricity provides? The 2017 hurricane season in the Caribbean and the United States was so destructive that entire communities spent weeks—and in some instances months—living without the services that rely on electricity to keep their…
Reliable and Affordable Electricity for Nigeria: Growing the Minigrid Market
The vast majority of Nigerians today lack access to reliable and affordable electricity. From factories to schoolrooms, the power situation hampers development throughout Nigeria, especially in rural areas of the country. The Nigerian Economic Summit Group and RMI’s new report, Minigrid Investment Report: Scaling the Nigerian Market, discusses the…
Using Undergrid Minigrids to Drive Development in Thousands of Sub-Saharan African Communities
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, hundreds of millions of people live “under the grid,” where they are nominally served by a utility but receive little or no power. For example, in Mokoloki community in Ogun State, Nigeria, electricity arrives sporadically; residents can only access power for a few hours at a time,…