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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Now showing1 - 10 of 126
  • Publication
    Shared Infrastructure for Clean Hydrogen
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-31) World Bank
    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) Shrestha, Ashish; Pedersen, Anders; Janardhanan, Neelima; Hanley, Mollie
    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) World Bank
    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) World Bank
    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) Tenenbaum, Bernard; Greacen, Chris; Shrestha, Ashish
    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.
  • Publication
    Mobilizing Commercial Financing to Scale Up Energy Efficiency in the Public Sector
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-22) Limaye, Dilip; Singh, Jas; Lee, Selena Jihyun
    Scaling up energy efficiency is critical to the energy transition—and the public sector is a good place to start. Programs in public buildings, in particular, can introduce new models and thus help shape markets. Given the limits of public financing against huge investment needs, countries must unlock commercial financing. The first steps are to adopt international best practices and select financing mechanisms suited to local policy and regulatory frameworks, public agency characteristics, implementation barriers, and the maturity of financial markets.
  • Publication
    Improving Gender Equality and Rural Livelihoods in Senegal through Sustainable and Participatory Energy Management: Senegal's PROGEDE II Project
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06) Hammond, Alicia; Schomer, Inka; Ngom, Alassane; Seck, Awa; Lopes Janik, Vanessa
    Launched in 2011, the Second Sustainable and Participatory Energy Management Project (PROGEDE II) for Senegal has been hailed for effectively mainstreaming a gender perspective into an energy project. Under the project, women have participated more in decision making; developed skills in technical production, entrepreneurship, and organizational management; and benefitted from increased incomes.
  • Publication
    Adapting Spatial Frameworks to Guide Energy Access Interventions in Urbanizing Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-07) Kersey, Jessica; Koo, Bryan Bonsuk
    The extension of electricity into rural areas has been the main focus of efforts to achieve universal access to reliable, affordable, and modern energy by 2030. On the African continent and elsewhere, however, rapid urbanization has produced new patterns of human settlement that blur the distinction between rural and urban. As a case study of Kenya demonstrates, access metrics aggregated at the rural or urban level do not equip governments and their partners to properly identify or target sites for electrification. Spatialized frameworks and data that define space along a rural–urban continuum or as urban catchment areas can improve policy makers’ understanding of the specific barriers to access that communities face.
  • Publication
    Net Zero Energy by 2060: Charting the Path of Europe and Central Asia toward a Secure and Sustainable Energy Future
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-07) Doczi, Szilvia
    In the long term, both energy security and decarbonization in the region will depend on substantial increases in national climate ambitions. Achieving those increases will depend, in turn, on equally substantial increases in investment in low-carbon technologies, accompanied by timely policies and regulatory measures. The World Bank has developed a whole-energy-system model, data driven, technology rich, and bottom-up, to project optimal least-cost pathways for Europe and Central Asia to achieve a net zero energy target by 2060. This Live Wire is based on a report published in March 2024 (World Bank and ESMAP 2024).
  • Publication
    Using Biomass or Green Ammonia to Replace Coal in Existing Thermal Power Plants: Feasibility and Challenges
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-06) Tavoulareas, Stratos
    Finding fuel sources to replace coal in power plants is crucial in the march toward decarbonization. Biomass and ammonia are two options offering significant potential. Both can be used with coal or alone in newly constructed facilities or in modified power plants. Relatively new power plants are good candidates for modification. While work is underway demonstrating the feasibility of each material, there are logistical challenges to address, particularly in the case of ammonia.