Approaching 10,000 followers (with average 300,000 impressions per month), Power for All’s Twitter account is a window into the topics that most interest the distributed renewable energy sector. Twitter measures “Top Tweets” based of engagement and impressions. The themes that generated the biggest response in 2018? Mini-grids, and the jobs opportunity of energy access. Other topics of interest: consumer demand, market development, and data.
Here’s a month-by-month list of Top Tweets:
January: the year started with a look ahead at the top 10 expected sector trends in 2018 gleaned from the GOGLA Forum in Hong Kong. It’s worth another read to see if we were 10 for 10 in our predictions.
What can we expect in 2018 from the energy access sector? Here are a few takeaways by our @mrcleantech from the recently concluded @GOGLAssociation forum https://t.co/ANsgz9ujzH pic.twitter.com/d0rRswdZWd
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) January 31, 2018
February: findings published on our India-focused content channel, “Powering Rural India”, indicated that rural consumers prefer locally owned grids.
Rural electricity consumers in India prefer locally-owned grids: says researcher @Ari_Toz https://t.co/sx2SiTRaKY pic.twitter.com/tIw4X930hh
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) February 7, 2018
March: our Nigeria team and UNEP organized an event, “Reducing Black Carbon Emissions by Transitioning to Clean and Sustainable Clean Energy”, which spotlighted the huge opportunity for millions of Nigerians to switch from dirty kerosene to distributed renewables.
Do you know that 36.3% of Nigeria's South East region use kerosene as a lighting fuel? This is about 7.2m people that are stuck in energy poverty. It is also a lot of black carbon emissions#endenergypovertyfaster pic.twitter.com/QFmap6ovPM
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) March 13, 2018
April: we helped launch the Africa Mini-Grid Developers Association (AMDA), an organization committed to working with global and local stakeholders to bring clean energy access to 600 million Africans through rural distributed utilities.
The world's 1st dedicated mini-grid trade association, the Africa Mini-grid Developers Association (AMDA), announced its official launch today. Mini-grids are expected to bring electricity to at least 140 million Africans by 2030 https://t.co/imweZnc0yY #minigrids #SDG7 #Africa pic.twitter.com/Ob3tOYl6Q8
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) April 13, 2018
May: we were at the 2018 SEforALL Forum in Lisbon where the World Bank launched its new report about the global progress towards achieving SDG 7.
Now at 2018 #SEforALLforum: The launch of 'Tracking #SDG7: The #Energy Progress Report', the most comprehensive look available at the world's progress towards the global energy targets on #EnergyAccess, #RenewableEnergy, clean cooking & energy efficiency. #EndEnergyPovertyFaster pic.twitter.com/emmTNVKcLC
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) May 2, 2018
June: the World Economic Forum spotlighted the massive potential for scaling mini-grids, based on an analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
New @IEA analysis shows that to provide universal #EnergyAccess to 1.3 billion people by 2030, #minigrids would be the cheapest technology for connecting 450 million people, 2/3 of whom live in #SubSaharan #Africa: https://t.co/dG6dkWOw3G #EndEnergyPovertyFaster #SDG7 #offgrid pic.twitter.com/dyNwxW9biQ
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) June 21, 2018
July: following more than a year of behind the scenes engagement by Power for All, The Economist published an article on the potential of mini-grids to help the poor.
#Minigrids could be a boon to poor people in #Africa and #Asia. When allied with #microfinance, “green grids” can boost economic activity: https://t.co/oVRIgj5ZOk via @TheEconomist #EndEnergyPovertyFaster #SDG7 #HLPF2018 pic.twitter.com/TXIloQ7As4
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) July 12, 2018
August: access to data is still a huge challenge for the sector. To help address this, Power for All launched its Platform for Energy Access Knowledge (PEAK). The platform goal is to translate dense energy access reports and datasets into easy-to-use insights.
In case you missed it: We launched PEAK, our interactive platform for #EnergyAccess knowledge, explore it now https://t.co/xVGdlVjGT5 #EndEnergyPovertyFaster #SDG7 #offgrid pic.twitter.com/SzPhIfbbLm
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) August 24, 2018
September: we produced a new video, “Mini-Grids: Key to Ending Energy Poverty”, realized with the help of partners Smart Power India, SteamaCo, Ashden, and Mlinda.
#Minigrids have the potential to bring #EnergyAccess to 450 million people by 2030, helping to end #EnergyPoverty while also laying the foundation for rural economic growth in #SubSaharan #Africa & many others regions and countries https://t.co/Gjfihjakcb #EndEnergyPovertyFaster pic.twitter.com/llcCsava5R
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) September 11, 2018
October: this was the month of #PoweringJobs! We launched this new campaign to ensure that the needed skills and jobs in clean, distributed energy are created to achieve SDG 7, and to employ the energy workforce of the future, especially women and youth.
#DYK: According to @IRENA, by 2030 #offgrid renewable energy solutions can create 4.5 million job worldwide. Learn more at new #PoweringJobs campaign: https://t.co/bEjAznLZi3 #SDG7 #SDG8 #GlobalGoals #IOREC pic.twitter.com/eoZhG9BRxC
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) October 31, 2018
November: new analysis by the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) showed uneven growth of off-grid renewable energy. Find out why.
#Offgrid #RenewableEnergy has grown tremendously across the world over the last decade, but growth was very uneven. Why was off-grid successful in some places and not others? https://t.co/Oj3iHuMMaY #EndEnergyPovertyFaster #SDG7 #EnergyAccess pic.twitter.com/HoqSykcRqa
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) November 26, 2018
December: an infographic we produced on the need in Africa for #PoweringJobs in renewable energy, based on IRENA data.
10.3 million renewable #energy #jobs exist globally. Yet just 76,000 are in #Africa, where they are most urgently needed: https://t.co/pebpTbzhVj #SDG7 #SDG8 #PoweringJobs pic.twitter.com/VUhkpsWuz2
— Power for All (@Power4All2025) December 17, 2018
2018 was an exciting year for the Power for All team, with many amazing milestones and the incredible support from our partners and followers. Thank you all, we look forward to achieving even more in 2019 on our Twitter channel and on the road to ensuring sustainable clean energy access across the world.