Report Series: Live Wire
This is a Knowledge Note series of the Energy Practice. Those working on the front lines of energy development in emerging economies have a wealth of technical knowledge and case experience to share with their colleagues but seldom have the time to write for publication. Live Wire offers a support system to make sharing knowledge as easy as possible.
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Publication
Powering through the Storm: Climate Resilience for Energy Systems
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)Climate change and its impacts on power systems often mean more frequent power outages and repairs, which raise maintenance costs and pose other challenges. Yet proactive modifications in project design, maintenance, and operation can enhance system resilience at lower costs than reactive adaptation. This Live Wire considers the implications of climate resilience in the power sector and highlights ongoing World Bank work and best practice, with a focus on Africa. -
Publication
Learning from Large-Scale Solar Home System Electrification in Bangladesh
(Washington, DC, 2022)The Bangladesh Solar Home Systems (SHS) Program contributed significantly to achieving near-universal access to electricity by installing over 4 million SHSs from 2003 to 2018, serving 16 percent of rural households by 2016. The government mobilized USD 683 million in loans and grants from international development partners for roll-out financing, which leveraged an additional USD 412 million from domestic sources. The Program provided significant benefits to all participants, especially rural households. These experiences are relevant to Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 600 million people lack electricity access and 40 percent of electricity connections will need to be off-grid to achieve universal access by 2030 -
Publication
Access to Clean Cooking and Electricity: Righting the Policy Balance in Sub-Saharan Africa and Fragile Settings
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)This Live Wire analyzes data from the 2020 edition of Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) and presents the trends in policy on access to clean cooking and electricity, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and the countries within the region affected by fragility, conflict, and violence. The issue explores the imbalance in policy effort on the two forms of access. -
Publication
Agrodem: An Open-Source Model that Quantifies the Electricity Requirements of Irrigation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) aims to ensure access to modern energy for all by 2030. Reaching the goal depends on ramping up electrification efforts. Most of the geospatial models developed to date to identify priority areas for energy access efforts focus on the electrification of households, giving short shrift to industrial and agricultural activities. But loads from those activities can be substantial. When combined with residential loads, they can affect the least-cost technology -
Publication
Opportunities for Direct Uses of Geothermal Energy in Türkiye
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Türkiye has substantial geothermal potential, and the country’s government is committed to exploiting it, both for economic reasons and to meet its obligations as a signatory of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Türkiye has more than 400 known geothermal fields in 63 different provinces. The country’s total estimated geothermal potential is more than 60,000 megawatts thermal. Developing that potential could create more than 120,000 direct jobs, with ample opportunities for women’s participation. The Turkish government has set an ambitious goal of 11,150 MWt in direct uses of geothermal energy by 2025. Meeting that goal will require raising awareness, building capacity, ensuring a favorable regulatory environment, and increasing access to funding for both public and private entities. -
Publication
Raising Rural Productive Uses of Electricity: A Case Study of a Successful Utility-NGO Partnership in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11-30)Too often, electrification programs do not fully exploit the degree to which access to electricity can improve livelihoods. This live wire documents the lessons learned from the World Bank-funded Indonesia Rural Electrification projects in the 1990s. The projects used marketing conducted by nongovernmental organizations to increase energy sales, investment in equipment, and productive uses of electricity by rural residents. The projects were innovative in their emphasis on productive use as an explicit goal of rural electrification efforts and in their use of non-government organizations (NGOs) to achieve results that benefited both the utility and rural residents. -
Publication
Understanding CO2 Emissions from Geothermal Power Generation in Turkey
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07)Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission factors from Turkish geothermal plants have been measured in the 400 to 1,300 gram per kilowatt-hour (g per kWh) range, significantly higher than the reported global average (121 g per kWh). The good news is that despite these unusually high initial emission factors most, if not all, Turkish geothermal power plants show a steady decline in CO2 emissions over time. Predictive models developed under the World Bank-financed Geothermal Development Project show that estimated average lifetime emissions from Turkey’s geothermal power plants are aligned with the global average. These results justify further investments in the development of geothermal energy in Turkey, along with additional research on how best to manage CO2 emissions. -
Publication
Climate and Disaster Risk Screening: Making Energy Projects More Resilient
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05-25)The power sector remains especially vulnerable to natural disasters and extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change. Planning ahead and investing in resilience to mitigate climate and disaster risks in the power sector can help minimize infrastructure damage and yield savings during recovery from a natural disaster. Conducting an in-depth climate and disaster risk screening (CDRS) during the planning and preparation stages of energy infrastructure projects is a crucial first step to building resilience. Data sharing, knowledge exchange, and awareness building on CDRS can substantially improve the screening process, while also helping to bring resilience to the forefront of energy investment discussions. -
Publication
Stationary Energy Storage to Transform Power Systems in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05-25)Versatility, ease of deployment, modular design, and falling costs make stationary energy storage systems appealing for integrating renewable electricity into grids. Their most common uses are in hybrid power plants at utility scale; as a replacement for diesel-fueled backup generators; as a source of ancillary services for main grids; and as a component in mini- and off-grid systems deployed to expand access to electricity. But challenges remain to scale up energy storage sustainably in developing countries. The World Bank's new Energy Storage Partnership is addressing those challenges. -
Publication
Energy Efficiency as a Driver of More and Better Goods and Services
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-16)Energy efficiency is seen more often as a means of reducing energy consumption and costs than as a way to expand the production of goods and services. But it can help raise a company’s manufacturing capacity, improve the quantity and quality of a city’s water supply, and provide more heating and cooling to improve attendance and learning in schools - all while keeping energy costs down. It is important to recognize such benefits of energy efficiency for low- and middle-income countries - and to factor them into economic assessments of projects and programs.