Publication: Capturing the Multi-Dimensionality of Energy Access
Loading...
Published
2014-06-13
ISSN
Date
2014-06-17
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
There are two initial challenges in defining and measuring energy access: the absence of a universal definition of energy access and the difficulty of measuring any definition in an accurate manner. The multi-tier approach to measuring energy access proposed in the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Global Tracking Framework of 2013 introduces a five-tier measurement methodology based on various energy attributes, such as quantity, quality, affordability, and duration of supply. The approach makes it possible to compute a weighted index of access to energy for a given geographical area. Separate notes focus on multi-tier measurement of energy access for households, productive enterprises, and community institutions. The type of data required for a multi-tiered assessment of energy access in a given area can be obtained through surveys of actual energy availability and use among a scientific sample of all users in a given category (households, enterprises, community institutions). Survey questionnaires elicit information about each energy attribute, and the results are fed into the multi-tier matrices. Data may also be collected from energy suppliers to indicate the tiers of access that specific projects may deliver to a targeted population. Capturing the multi-dimensionality of energy access is important, because rapid expansion of access to energy requires both accurate assessment and tracking of progress. Under the new multi-tier framework, data from energy surveys are compiled and analyzed to produce an energy access diagnostic for a given area. The diagnostic includes an in-depth disaggregated data analysis and an aggregate analysis comprising a series of indices of energy access. Defining and measuring energy access by considering attributes of energy supply yields a better understanding of how various interventions improve access.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Bhatia, Mikul; Angelou, Nicolina. 2014. Capturing the Multi-Dimensionality of Energy Access. Live Wire, 2014/16. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18677 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Shared Infrastructure for Clean Hydrogen(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-31)Studies of the development of clean hydrogen have often focused on the production side. Infrastructure built and used for storage and transportation warrants more attention. Among the topics that should be assessed are system design, operation, integration, and ownership; market design and governance; and planning. This Live Wire examines case studies and literature on the infrastructure for hydrogen hubs, with an emphasis on the benefits of shared infrastructure. Given the breadth of hydrogen production and infrastructure, the focus is on renewable hydrogen production for domestic use and for export after conversion to ammonia.Publication A Responsible Data Sharing Framework for the Distributed Renewable Energy Sector(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-25)In collaboration with Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency, the World Bank is piloting a Responsible Data Sharing Framework (RDSF) for the distributed renewable energy sector. The framework was developed over the course of 12 months in 2024, through collaboration with some 25 stakeholders from government and the private sector. It embodies a shared ambition to turn data into better outcomes for the communities served. At its core, an RDSF for the sector sets out how appropriate data about projects can be shared in ways that are efficient and effective. In 2023, the World Bank approved the Nigeria Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project. DARES aims to bring new or improved access to clean energy to 17.5 million people and replace more than 280,000 petrol and diesel generators in the process. The RDSF pilot is part of DARES.Publication Measuring the Climate Resilience of the Power Sector: Harmonization, Not Homogenization(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-31)Although by its very nature climate resilience can never be fully “standardized”, the development and mainstreaming of climate resilience metrics can benefit from greater consensus around key topics. Areas such as metric categories, methodologies, and reporting frameworks can be aligned through coordinated efforts among regulators, utilities, and other stakeholders, enabling more consistent, effective, and scalable resilience planning across the sector. The key is harmonization and not homogenization.Publication Decarbonizing Ammonia and Nitrogen Fertilizers with Clean Hydrogen(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-12)Synthetic fertilizers are essential to sustaining the world’s population, but their production is responsible for 1.8–2.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Clean hydrogen holds growing potential (amid falling costs) to decarbonize fertilizer production. Hydrogen produces synthetic ammonia, a building block of most fertilizers. With the fertilizer market as a reliable off-taker, this shift could support the overall expansion of clean hydrogen, even as it boosts global food security. However, this transition may require adjustments, including changes in fertilizer types and modifications to existing subsidy schemes.Publication Mini Grids for Underserved Main Grid Customers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-21)Can mini grids help to solve the problem of poorly served main grid connected communities A mini grid is an electricity generation and distribution network that supplies electricity to a localized group of customers. Mini grids can be isolated from or connected to the main grid. To date, most mini grids in Sub-Saharan Africa have been built in electrically isolated rural villages not connected to the main grid. Based on broad experience working with mini grid programs in more than 20 low- and middle-income countries and five detailed case studies, the authors offer observations and recommendations about mini grids in general and a new type known as “undergrid mini grids” being used in Nigeria and India to serve poorly served communities.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Scaling Up Access to Electricity : Pay-as-You-Go Plans in Off-Grid Energy Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01)Although the payment models offered by off-grid energy companies are less flexible than those implemented with great success by mobile telephone companies, they may still have an important role to play in scaling up off-grid energy services for billions of people who lack access to electricity. More research is needed to assess the importance of flexible payments in attracting reliable low-income customers.Publication Planning for Electricity Access(2014-11-20)This brief examines planning for access to electricity. That electricity for all campaigns around the globe often fall short of their targets is partly a failure of planning. In the area of generation and transmission, technical changes could improve the handling of key constraints, such as fuel availability, funding, and the rate of building. Planning for distribution networks could be improved by gathering data on end-use demand and deploying geospatial tools. Most important of all, the entire planning process from generation to distribution must be better coordinated if access plans are to be successful.Publication Scaling Up Access to Electricity(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015)This brief will focus on enabling regulations for mini-grids, providing an overview of key issues, options, and good practices. While appropriate regulations are not all that is needed to spur mini-grid development, is usually one of the first obstacles that potential developers face and therefore the most urgent issue for governments. The authors draw on a case study of Tanzania, a pioneer in setting an enabling and light-handed regulatory framework for mini-grids. Given the urgency of leveraging private sector investments for reaching the universal access targets of the international sustainable energy for all projects, the authors also focus on regulatory issues relevant to private sector entrepreneurs and investors. Mini-grid entrepreneurs need to know that their investment of time and money will have a reasonable chance not just of being repaid but also of returning a profit. A clear and credible regulatory framework that makes and enforces fair and efficient decisions in a timely manner helps entrepreneurs make informed investment decisions. The key characteristics of such a framework, described include licensing and registration, tariff setting, and what happens when the main grid reaches the mini-grid.Publication Promoting Energy Access Projects under the Clean Development Mechanism : Standardized Baselines and Suppressed Demand(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-01)New concepts under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), namely standardized baselines and suppressed demand, should facilitate the implementation of CDM energy access projects, particularly in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), by reducing transaction costs and reflecting the real emission reductions achieved. Governments and authorities in LDCs can play a prominent role in making these new CDM opportunities available. The improvement of the regulatory framework can facilitate the development of innovative carbon-based financing schemes required for successful scaling-up of CDM energy access projects in LDCs. The main purpose of this paper is to outline how the new CDM concepts of standardized baselines and suppressed demand may be used to promote energy access projects under the CDM, in the context of new and expanded role of host country Designated National Authorities (DNAs). In the process, the paper also identifies challenges in the use of these concepts and opportunities for further simplification. By way of illustration, one specific energy access technology, solar home systems, is analyzed in detail. The paper is organized as follows: chapter one is introduction; chapter two provides an overview of the current status of CDM projects in LDCs; chapter three introduces energy access projects in LDCs; chapter four outlines new approaches under the CDM for energy access projects; chapter five goes into the challenges for the application of standardized baselines in LDCs; and chapter six gives recommendations on implementing the new CDM concepts.Publication Scaling Up Access to Electricity : The Case of Bangladesh(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06-13)This knowledge note is the second of three case studies that concerns scaling up access to electricity in Africa, Bangladesh, and Rwanda. Since its inception in 2003, Bangladesh's solar home system program has installed about three million electrification systems in rural households, two-thirds of them in the last three years. The program is the most dynamic off-grid electrification program in the world, benefitting more than 15 million people and contributing about 130 MW in renewable energy generation capacity. The case study for Bangladesh is interesting, because off-grid electrification is crucial to reaching universal access. Achieving universal access to modern energy services is one of the three complementary objectives of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative. Bangladesh's rural electrification program was initiated in 1977 with the creation of the Rural Electrification Board (REB). Yet, it was estimated that at the prevailing pace of grid electrification, Bangladesh was going to take 50 years to reach universal access. By 2002, it had become apparent that an off-grid approach was needed to complement efforts to extend the grid. When the World Bank's first RERED project was being designed in 2002, a two-pronged approach was adopted to promote the use of solar home systems in rural areas, thereby leveraging the country's renewable energy potential, while continuing to help the REB and rural cooperatives improve their operational and financial performance. The program s final design is a good example of how international experience and local know-how can come together to yield an innovative design that suits the country's circumstances. The project's design was flexible (with a range of subsidies and system sizes, for example), allowing for quick adaptation to evolving technology and market conditions, and to consumer feedback.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.