Pro-Poor Access to Green Electricity in Kenya

Is Kenya on track to follow an electrification strategy that is green and pro-poor? What are the main challenges to following this path? The two questions guiding this study are particularly relevant in a country with exceptional renewable energy resources, but where 80 per cent of the population lacks access to electricity and 50 per cent lives in poverty. This study looks at four particular issues relating to access to green electricity for the poor: accessibility; commercial viability for project developers; financial sustainability for the State; and affordability. We will focus on grid electricity and mini-grids. For grid-connected generation, once electricity is fed to the grid, the issues of accessibility and affordability for the poor depend on national policies determining who gets electricity and at what price, making it impossible to differentiate between green and non-green electricity. However, our study will show whether or not on-grid renewable generation can be financially sustainable in Kenya while providing affordable fees. For off-grid electricity, targeting the poor is a matter of situating generation capacity in the right places and affordability is a matter of setting prices that allow for cost recovery without being excessively expensive for the poor. This report can support decision-making for development and climate finance institutions, as well as private investors in Kenya seeking a pro-poor green electrification strategy. It shows how to target the poor, which electrification alternatives to use, at what price, whether or not this is commercially viable and which policies would be required to make it so.UK Department for International Developmen

A Gender Approach to the Promotion of Productive Uses of Electricity

Interventions promoting productive use of electricity (PUE) without gender approaches are more likely to benefit men than women. Men typically own more businesses and operate in a wider range of more productive, electricity‑intensive activities. Gender approaches improve the effectiveness of PUE projects, benefiting both men and women as productive electricity users and increasing electricity suppliers’ financial sustainability. Policy recommendations include setting gender goals, selecting activities to create or upgrade with improved energy supply, and targeting the different constraints men and women face to benefit from PUE.UK Department for International Developmen

Financing Universal Access to Electricity

The recent emphasis on the provision of modern energy services as an important ingredient for development has improved finance availability for the goal of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL). However, existing financial flows are still insufficient to meet the target of universal access of sustainable energy by 2030 and often ignore poor people, who cannot afford the service, or those renewable energy technologies that cannot offer high rates of return. Drawing on a large dataset of official development assistance and private investment for electrification between 1990 and 2012, our research has looked at the factors that explain donor and private finance in the electricity sector of developing countries. What lessons can be taken and shared with policymakers to avoid past mistakes and target countries and technologies that have been neglected in previous efforts?UK Department for International Developmen

Real Time Monitoring Technologies for Pro-Poor Access to Electricity

Existing literature strongly and consistently reports the high upfront cost of energy technology hardware as one of the main demand-side barriers to increased use of modern energy services by the poor. Existing literature also shows that lack of control over monthly bills and unawareness of consumption levels lead to inefficient and sometimes insufficient electricity consumption patterns by the poor. Innovative technologies drawing from existing power metering and mobile payment technologies are now targeting the barriers of affordability and financial sustainability of electricity provision to the poor by allowing fee-for-services and rent-to-buy schemes for the sale of electricity, tariffs related to actual consumption, consumers’ control of their electricity bills and suppliers’ more efficient collection of payments. Real time monitoring (RTM) of on-grid electricity consumption has a long history, with prepaid meters being used in several developed and developing countries. However, new mobile technologies are enabling their use in off-grid systems, including both mini-grids and mobile household systems.DFI

The Evidence of Benefits for Poor People of Increased Renewable Electricity Capacity: Literature Review

Lack of access to electricity is seen as a major constraint to economic growth and increased welfare in developing countries. In 2010 nearly 1.3 billion people (close to one-fifth of the global population) did not have access to electricity, with most of them in India, South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In this report, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) has conducted a review of the evidence that investments in electricity-generating capacity have benefits for poor people, and what factors influence that relationship. The review begins by elucidating a theory to break down the causal chain between additional renewable electricity generation capacity and poverty impacts in four stages or links, which can be formulated as four research questions: (a) What is the link between increased renewable electricity capacity and higher availability and reliability of supply?; (b) What is the link between increased availability and reliability of electricity and actual connection and use by the poor?; (c) What is the link between electricity consumption and poverty impacts?; and (d) What is the link between electricity consumption and economic growth at the macro level?DFI

Strengthening the Poverty Impact of Renewable Electricity Investments: Summary of E-Discussion

On 19 and 20 March 2014 IDS convened an e-discussion on ‘strengthening the poverty impact of renewable electricity investments’. The event sought to instigate a global dialogue on what is required to maximise the poverty impact of clean electricity investments, as well as inform ongoing IDS work on this topic as part of our Accountable Grant with DFID. The e-discussion was structured around three threads: 1. How strong is the evidence that electrification has an impact on poor people, and does this matter in decisions to finance renewable generation capacity projects? 2. How can the poverty impact of renewable generation capacity projects be maximised? 3. How can poverty eradication be introduced into the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) and climate finance agendas? This note summarises the contributions made by different participants in the e-discussion. It generalises the points most commonly raised around each thread and reflects specific points of strong consensus or contestation, but without identifying specific contributors by name. It also provides a project team reflection on how valuable the event was for our research and why.UK Department for International Developmen

Green Power for Africa: Overcoming the Main Constraints

Inadequate power supply in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) means that only 37 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans have access to electricity. Those with access are prone to experience problems with regular power outages. In many sub- SSA countries, electricity access rates are decreasing because electrification efforts are slower than population growth. In recent years, however, some SSA countries have demonstrated that with political will and opportunities for appropriate finance, access to electricity can be accelerated. Alongside increased awareness in the international development community of the importance of energy for human development, the requirement for energy to be ‘green’ means that calls for the provision of clean, renewable energy sources cannot be ignored. The authors of this IDS Bulletin provide insights from power systems engineering, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and political economy on how to overcome constraints to green electricity in Africa. One of the biggest contributions of this issue is that is allows a dialogue between academics and practitioners that would not normally be published in the same journal. What also emerges as an underlying thread is the essential role of donors to achieve sustainable energy for all in Africa. The contributions to the IDS Bulletin underline the enormity of the clean electrification challenge in Africa, and demonstrate the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach where technical, economic, and political perspectives are involved in the design of interventions

The Evidence of Benefits for Poor People of Electricity Provision: Scoping Note and Review Protocol

At one level, the relationship between electricity, economic growth and the elimination of poverty is obvious. At the aggregate level, no country has achieved a high level of per capita income and welfare without a functioning electricity system. At the level of individual households, access to a reliable supply of electricity by poor households is thought to contribute significantly to overcoming a number of barriers, including: limited opportunities for children to study; severe constraints on economic opportunities; negative health effects via inability to store food safely; and constraints on the ability to access information via TV, radio and mobile phones. It may have negative effects on the provision of services, including health, education and pumped water. Finally, limited access and poor reliability of supply more widely across the economy may prevent the reduction of poverty through constraining economic growth. However, the evidence for the exact relationships between the provision of electricity on the one hand and the reduction of poverty on the other are not as well understood as they could be. Although there are some existing reviews of particular aspects of the relationship between electricity and poverty, an up-to-date, rigorous assessment of the evidence base designed to inform DFID’s programming is absent. This document sets out the background and context for a review to be undertaken by IDS assessing the extent and quality of the evidence base for the relationships between low carbon electricity capacity and benefits for poor people. It delineates the boundaries of the study and highlights some of the relevant issues and the types of evidence available. It identifies the different kinds of electricity interventions and the kinds of developmental outcomes to be considered. The details of the proposed approach may subsequently be refined in consultation with reviewers and other stakeholders.DFI