Can Renewable Energy Help Close the Electricity Access Gap in Rural Africa? (full-text pdf, 2MB)
World Bank, 2010.
Mobile phones, which first came to Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s, have reached about a quarter of the African population. Can something similar happen with decentralized access to electricity, which would help reduce rural poverty in Africa?
In a new working paper, Uwe Deichmann, Craig Meisner, Siobhan Murray, and David Wheeler argue that renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, could play a significant role in Africa’s electrification. It can become the cheapest option for many households in rural and remote areas of Africa, where it is often too costly to expand Western-style universal grids.
In addition, decentralized renewable-energy technologies can help limit a country’s carbon footprint and their adoption can be supported through carbon finance mechanisms. But there are limits: for most Africans, especially those living in population-dense areas, grid-connected energy supplies are likely to be cheaper in the foreseeable future, highlighting the importance of increasing the share of large-scale renewable energy technologies in a country’s fuel mix.
