In the News

The more things change, the more they stay the same. EAP’s latest in the Brookings Future Development blog explores the electrification experiences of seven countries, their program costs and the subsidies required to bridge the gap between the cost of providing last-mile electricity and what poorer customers are able to pay.

Countries facing electricity access challenges today have more options and potential electrification pathways than ever before, but the initial cost of connecting new rural customers remains an expensive proposition. This brief explores the successful rural electrification experiences of seven case countries—Brazil, Chile, Laos, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, and Tunisia—looking specifically at the cost of connections and how subsidies and public financing were deployed to address the affordability challenge and facilitate energy access.

We will be hosting a series of events with Ms. Olasimbo Sojinrin. Olasimbo is the country director of Solar Sister in Nigeria. Solar Sister is an organization that enables electrification in last-mile rural communities by training its women to be entrepreneurs that distribute clean energy technology in their home communities. Their work spans across 5 countries, and they have enabled over 10,000 entrepreneurs.

“Nigeria is the poster child on how power access, especially in the business area, is just such a mega-constraint to growth,” EAP’s Jonathan Phillips told NPR in a discussion of the importance of electricity to the tech industry.

The 7th annual Energy in Emerging Markets Case Competition was held at Duke University as part of Duke Energy Week. The winning team of the case competition went home with a $10,000 check.

Developers, donors, and customers are increasingly interested in the potential for microgrids to provide power to hundreds of millions of people who lack it. The Energy Access Project and partners test business model interventions to unlock that potential.