Recently, the Harvard Business Review, of which I am a big fan and subscriber, launched a library/research service. With my foray back into exploring how beset to expand energy access as a key component of alleviating the many disparities this creates on disadvantaged communities along with its place within the broader fight to bring about energy justice, I figured it would be helpful to understand the monetary investment that has taken place. So, I figured I’d give the new service a test run by asking for research on global investment in energy access projects. The below arrived just a day after my question, and it being so comprehensive, I figured I’d share it.
Thanks, Harvard!
Baker Library Fast Answer
Hi Erin,
Thanks again for getting in touch with your question. You asked about global energy access investment projects. Here are some resources to get you started.
Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) offers the Energy Finance Series developed in partnership with Climate Policy Initiative. The report “is the first and only in-depth attempt to capture multiple years of data on finance for the two key areas of energy access: electrification and clean cooking,” (via 2019 executive summary.)
The Energizing Finance: Understanding the Landscape 2020 report tracks finance for electricity and clean cooking committed in 2018 to 20 Sub-Saharan African and Asian countries. Examples of energy investment information from the report include:
- Finance for minigrids and off-grid solutions remained at less than 1-1.5 percent of the total finance tracked for electricity
- USD 41 billion of annual investment is required to achieve universal residential electrification, but only one third, or USD 16 billion, was tracked in the HICs in 2018
Other recent reports include:
- Energizing Finance: Missing the Mark 2020 – This report identifies the gaps between commitments and disbursements of development finance for energy, as tracked in the OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database.
- Note: Energizing Finance: Missing the Mark 2020 numbers are not directly comparable to the findings from the Energizing Finance: Understanding the Landscape 2020 report, which tracks finance commitments to energy from a broader group of data sources, including private investment.
- Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report – this global dashboard is a joint effort of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Energizing Finance: Understanding the Landscape 2019 – this report offers a picture of sustainable energy finance from 2013 to 2017. The executive summary offers this snapshot graphic:
Want to know more? We suggest starting with the following:
World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) content areas on Energy Access including:
- Integrated Electrification Planning
- Global Facility on Mini Grids (see Mini Grids for Half a Billion People : Market Outlook and Handbook for Decision Makers)
- Leaving No One Behind
- Efficient, Clean Cooking and Heating
- Lighting Global (see Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report 2020)
- The ESMAP Energy Data Hub has 557 datasets and 19 applications covering 193 countries
The International Energy Agency (IEA) offers the World Energy Outlook 2020, the most recent update of the agency’s World Energy Outlook flagship publication. The special topic Energy Access within the report focuses on “looking in depths at how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting current and future progress on energy access.” The publication Defining energy access: 2020 methodology, which outlines the sources and methodologies used notes that there is a “paucity of data on electricity access.”
IEA Energy Access publications include:
- World Energy Investment 2020 (May 2020)
- This report includes information on financing and acquisitions for energy projects, though it is not limited to energy access. A chart that includes Financing for Electricity networks from 2010 through 2019 is provided. A source for this chart is the subscription based IJGlobal, which does cover energy access projects.
- SDG7: Data and Projections – Access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (October 2020.) This report is forward looking and notes the following needed investment:
- The [Sustainable Development Scenario] scenario requires around $35 billion to be spent annually from 2021 to 2030 on generation and electricity networks through smart and efficient integrated delivery programmes, and making full use of decentralized solutions.
- This is three-times more than in the STEPS, and almost two thirds of the required investment should go to sub-Saharan Africa (via Abstract.)
- Energy Access Outlook: World Energy Outlook 2017 Special Report (2017)
- Africa Energy Outlook 2019 (2019)
- NOTE: the SDS has multiple charts on investments, all of which appear to have data originating from 2015, including:
- The IDC’s data and statistics page offers 49 charts that correspond to the keywords “energy access.” The IDC does offer subscription options for their data. The Energy Technology Perspectives 2020 Dataset offers “projections at the global level for the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS) based on detailed modelling of the energy sector using the ETP Model. The focus of the Dataset is to provide insights into sub-sectoral trends beyond the data and figures published in the report, given the focus of the report on technology opportunities in heavy industries and long-distance transport in particular.”
The following industry associations were referenced by the various sites or resources above:
- Smart Power India: Smart Power India helps to raise economic development in villages of India through electricity access provided by renewable energy mini-grids.
- GOGLA: the global association for the off-grid solar energy industry – The Voice of the Off-Grid Solar Energy Industry
- Africa Mini-grid Developers Association (AMDA): Africa’s 1st Renewable Mini-Grid Industry Association. See World Bank article on the launch.
- Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA): CCA works with a global network of partners to build an inclusive industry that makes clean cooking accessible to the three billion people who live each day without it. See the Reports & Tools page for detailed industry information.
- Efficiency for Access – A global coalition to accelerate clean energy access through high-performing appliances