Jonathan Phillips
Director, James E. Rogers Energy Access Project
Contact: 919-681-7188, jonathan.phillips@duke.edu
Phillips is the Director of the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke University, with an appointment at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. His work focuses on policy, regulatory, and economic issues related to rural electrification, grid de-carbonization, off-grid energy systems, and energy for productivity.
Phillips was the senior advisor to the president and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation during the Obama Administration, helping scale-up the agency’s climate finance capabilities and lead the implementation of strategic initiatives, including the agency’s $2.1 billion Power Africa portfolio.
Before that, Phillips led private sector engagement and programming with Power Africa at USAID, helping ramp-up the $300 million presidential initiative into one of the largest public-private development partnerships in the world.
From 2007-2014, he held a variety of roles in the U.S. Congress, most recently serving as the senior policy advisor to Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. He supported many notable legislative efforts, including serving as one of the lead authors of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that passed the House in 2009. He also served on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming as well as the House Natural Resources Committee.
Phillips was a business and economic development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Mongolia. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Milwaukee School of Engineering and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Recent work by Phillips includes:
- Report: Catalysing Climate Finance for Low-Carbon Agriculture Enterprises
- Report: COVID-19 and Distributed Renewables: How the Crisis Has Affected the Sector and What It Means for People, the Planet, and the Future of Energy Access
- Blog: How finance, ag-tech and more can speed the energy transition – 4 experts explain
- Blog: Climate finance meets low-carbon agtech
- Blog: Net Zero may be coming. But America is a fossil fuel bank to the developing world today.
- Policy Brief: Modernizing Energy Access Finance, Part 2—Balancing Competition and Subsidy: Assessing Mini-Grid Incentive Programs in sub-Saharan Africa
- Blog: Lessons from the proliferating mini-grid incentive programs in Africa
- Report: Business model innovations for utility and mini-grid integration: Insights from the Utilities 2.0 initiative in Uganda
- Policy Brief: Lessons for Modernizing Energy Access Finance, Part 1: What the Electrification Experiences of Seven Countries Tell Us about the Future of Connection Costs, Subsidies, and Integrated Planning
- Blog: An off-grid energy future requires learning from the past
- Report: The Energy Access Dividend: Accelerating off-grid solutions and bolstering reliability can generate big gains in Honduras and Haiti
- Report: The Energy Access Dividend in Honduras and Haiti
- In the News: The Powerlessness of Nigeria’s Tech Startups
- Publication: New Data and Technologies are Transforming Energy Access – Public Policy Must Catch Up
- Policy Brief: Profits and Productivity: Stimulating Electricity Demand in Low-Income Settings
- Publication: Research Agenda on Electricity Access and Productive Use
- Publication: The True Cost of Solar Tariffs in East Africa
- Publication: Harnessing the Power of Data: Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative Conference
- Publication: Can a Modernized U.S. Development Finance Institution Help Close the Energy Financing Gap?
- Essay: Seven Takeaways from the Energy Access Launch
- Op-ed: Opinion: Solar tariffs to affect world’s poorest
My Work
Catalyzing Climate Finance for Low-Carbon Ag-Tech
Despite minimal contributions to causing climate change, rural households working in the agriculture sector are disproportionately impacted by climate-related shocks and see it as one of the biggest risks to their livelihoods.Climate finance presents a critical...
Net Zero may be coming. But America is a fossil fuel bank to the developing world today.
Jonathan Phillips breaks down where the U.S. government’s overseas energy investments are parked as it launches its Net Zero ambitions
Listen now! Balancing Competition & Subsidy: Mini-Grid Incentives Programs in Africa Webinar
What can we learn from countries trying to scale mini-grid deployment? In this webinar, hear early lessons from Africa in the latest report from the Energy Access Project at Duke, “Balancing Competition and Subsidy: Mini-grid Incentive Programs in Africa.” EAP’s Jonathan Phillips and Victoria Plutshack led the discussion with a host of experts in the field.
Lessons for Modernizing Energy Access Finance
A modern energy system requires modern energy finance. This on-going series explores the ways in which we can learn from how energy access has been financed in the past to build a better, more equitable future.Part One: Public Financing for Rural...
Energy Monitor: 2021 will see more climate finance for locally led energy access
EAP’s Jonathan Phillips explains that hundreds of millions of people will not get electricity access by 2030 if we rely on purely commercial off-grid approaches alone.
New Blog! Lessons from the proliferating mini-grid incentive programs in Africa
As governments put in place incentives to scale up mini-grid deployment, our team has reviewed 20 mini-grid programs in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to pull out some initial lessons.