Insights
More than 40% of food loss in emerging economies occurs during post-harvest and processing. A reliable cold chain is crucial for food security and improved livelihoods. Distributed renewables have a major role to play.
Despite being a US$ 50 billion market and an opportunity to increase incomes for rural communities in India, solar-powered productive-use appliances -- for tailoring, food processing, carpentry and others -- are still unable to access end-user finance and therefore unable to scale, according to a new report.
With unprecedented levels of global displacement, there is an urgent need for continued and growing efforts in support of these vulnerable groups, especially in the growing field of humanitarian energy.
Dr. Roberto Ridolfi, special advisor on strategy and finance for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), called for countries to innovate their regulatory approach and reduce red tape and bureaucracy to scale solar-powered cold storage and end food waste.
More than 40% of food loss in emerging economies occurs during post-harvest and processing. A reliable cold chain is crucial for food security and improved livelihoods. Distributed renewables have a major role to play.
At the UN Climate Week Summit in New York, our CEO Kristina Skierka attended a panel event hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation where the Foundation officially launched the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty (GCEEP), driving a new agenda to provide electricity to hundreds of millions in pursuit of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 7. Key highlights from the roundtable included Foundation’s results-driven roadmap to end energy poverty by 2030.
The pay-as-you-go (PAYG) market for scaling access to solar energy is maturing quickly. Building market share through customer acquisition is no longer the top priority, being replaced by cost efficiency and portfolio management. More savvy funders are now embracing consolidation, thoughtful expansion or franchising. The era of the PAYG start-up is dead.
RMI highlights why Nigeria is the biggest mini-grid show on earth, with a US$8 billion annual revenue opportunity. It has the potential to electrify 14% of its population by building 10,000 mini-grids by 2023.
The impacts of renewable energy mini-grids extend far beyond high quality electricity access, providing rural communities with employment, increases in household savings and micro-enterprise revenue, and improved health, education and safety.
Demand stimulation through appliance financing helps balance the load profile of mini-grids and increase capacity utilization, both keys to their long-term sustainability. US$1.3 billion of appliance financing is needed by 2030.
Poor People’s Energy Outlook (PPEO) by Practical Action highlights best-practice for bottom-up energy planning, policy, finance, and scaling. Finance and subsidy are key. So is more focus on social uses: street lighting, health, education.
As the United Nations gathers in New York to deliberate climate action and the sustainable development goals (SDGs), including SDG7, we must ask ourselves: how is the Global South best served?
Power for All gathers together various predictions and trends that we see unfolding for electricity access and the distributed renewable energy sector in 2019.