How can communities and businesses across emerging economies harness the economic benefits of distributed renewable energy?
The Carbon Trust writes:
Access to affordable, reliable energy is still far from universal
While 92% of the global population now has basic access to electricity, progress is not keeping pace with the ambition of achieving universal access under UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) by 2030. An estimated 666 million people remain without electricity,1 with the challenge increasingly concentrated in low-income, remote and weak or off-grid settings. Furthermore, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) identifies unreliable grid access as a significant global issue, estimating that 1.5 billion people worldwide live with broken or highly intermittent grid services. This forces heavy reliance on expensive, polluting fossil-fuel backup generators, costing emerging economies between $30 and $50 billion annually in fuel alone.2
Clean energy solutions are increasingly proven and cost-competitive, but scaling them depends on viable business models and private sector delivery. In many markets, enterprises lack the capacity, financing and enabling conditions to deploy solutions at scale, while investors face limited pipelines of investment-ready opportunities and insufficient performance and financial data required to make investment decisions.
Distributed renewable energy (DRE) presents a significant opportunity to address this gap. Technologies such as solar, battery storage and mini-grids enable power to be generated closer to where it is needed, improving reliability, reducing costs and extending access to underserved communities and businesses.
Delivered through locally relevant business models and enterprises, DRE solutions have proven to support economic activity, strengthen livelihoods and contribute to more resilient, low-carbon energy systems. When energy supports agriculture, commerce, transport and services, it enables income generation, strengthens demand and improves system viability. By linking DRE with productive use and private sector development, energy access becomes a driver of economic growth and resilience, rather than an end in itself.
Iain Meager, Director, Innovation The Carbon Trust [said] ‘Access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy is fundamental to improving livelihoods and unlocking economic opportunity.’…
