As increasing amounts of data become available, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on efforts to improve energy access in less developed countries are becoming clearer. Several surveys and reports have been published in recent weeks that help build up the picture. The data are sobering. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook update illustrates the… Read More

Building on previous work, Kuungana Advisory has recently been working with Tearfund, a UK-based relief and development agency, to analyse the role of subsidies in accelerating progress on energy access. The paper analyses a wide-range of previous schemes, covering different geographies, technologies, and parts of the energy value chain, to understand what has worked in the… Read More

Earlier in 2020, GOGLA published a new report titled “Pricing Quality: Cost Drivers and Value-Add in the Off-Grid Solar Sector”.  The objective of this report was to analyse the cost of off-grid solar products and to understand the drivers of cost premia for higher quality products (as defined by the industry). Analysis presented in the… Read More

According to the latest Tracking SDG 7 data from SE4All, we still live in a world where only 44% of people across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have access to electricity. In rural areas this share drops further, to 22%. SDG 7 sets the ambitious goal of achieving universal access to energy by 2030. In parallel, countries… Read More

All too often it is easy to miss the connections between the different issues that we tackle in the energy sector. Kuungana Advisory has recently been working with DFID, through the ICED facility, on a number of projects to tackle this. Kuungana has been working with DFID over the past year and a half to develop a… Read More

There is increasing discussion of the potential for over-supply of utility-scale electricity generation capacity across many of the larger markets in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). How significant is this trend and what does it mean for priorities in the sector? The graph below shows analysis of the projected peak capacity surplus or deficit from Power Africa’s… Read More

We know that subsidies and cross-subsidies will be required to achieve SDG7: Universal access to clean and affordable energy. Some of the arguments for this conclusion are presented in a recent paper that I co-authored with Tearfund. Ultimately, a purely private-sector led approach will not deliver universal access. But without the involvement of the private… Read More

Initial reactions to the title of this blog? Surely we can talk about financial sustainability and cost reflectivity interchangeably, right? Why the “vs.”? Well, a lot of the time that might be fair, but in our work we’re seeing cases where this is not always true. Off-grid electricity access solutions are playing an increasingly important… Read More

Significant progress has been made in recent years in increasing the role of renewable energy in Africa. In several countries utility-scale renewables installations have been secured at increasingly competitive prices. The decline in renewable energy technology costs, combined with the progress made in developing more energy efficient lighting and appliances, is catalysing a revolution in… Read More

There are lots of challenges facing mini-grid developers in Africa, and – as yet – their potential remains unfulfilled. At the heart of the challenge are two political issues: Many politicians want to provide electricity access to all citizens at a universal tariff, i.e. reflecting the principal that all citizens should be able to gain… Read More