The State of Off-Grid Energy Access
Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2020
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: The cutting-edge business of bringing power to the last billion people on Earth without it.
We’ll follow the money, the markets, the business models and ask whether distributed renewables are providing a real alternative to slow grid connections.
Investments in off-grid power in Africa and Asia have skyrocketed in the last five years. Thirty times more money went into the sector in 2018 compared with 2013. More than $500 million dollars was invested in electrification in 2018, for the first time, an analysis by Wood Mackenzie found.
The money is finally bringing lights, cell phone charging and electric stoves to millions of people who had to rely on kerosene and wood. But is the money getting funneled to the right projects? Can they scale to meet a high-energy society? And what are the bottlenecks in international finance preventing these solutions from expanding faster?
Ben Attia joins us for a dive into the state of the market. Ben has spent years immersed in the world of solar home systems and off grid renewables in the Middle East and Africa. He leads emerging coverage of off-grid power markets for Wood MacKenzie.
Resources:
- Wood MacKenzie: Strategic Investments in Energy Access (by Ben)
- GTM: Report: Investment in Off-Grid Energy Access Totals $1.7B Through 2018
- MIT–Rockefeller Commission Report:
- Financial Times: Mobisol, A Cautionary Tale for Impact Investors
- Kahawatungu: M-Kopa Unveils Solar Refrigerators for Off-Grid Customers
- Forbes Tata Power Aims to Boost Electricity for Rural India
- Bloomberg Tata, Rockefeller Foundation Plan 10,000 India Microgrids
- South Africa Business Day: Digital tech in solar will be big help to emerging countries
This podcast is brought to you by Energetic Insurance. Energetic’s EneRate Credit Cover policy is an easy button for commercial solar — similar to a FICO score in residential solar. This enables savvy developers and investors to quickly finance commercial solar projects and turn around portfolio refinancings more rapidly. Find out more.
This podcast is brought to you by KORE Power. KORE Power is a leading manufacturer of high-density, high-voltage energy storage solutions for utility, industrial, microgrids and mission-critical markets. Find out more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So Ben what would you do with a billion dollars? |
| 0:03.0 | Parking garages. |
| 0:05.0 | Parking garages. |
| 0:06.0 | Yeah, I've always said parking garages are a great investment just for cars. |
| 0:09.0 | But when you add EV charging infrastructure and people commuting and leaving their cars there all day. |
| 0:13.9 | You have a giant stationary battery in the middle of a city. |
| 0:16.5 | That was an off-the-cuff question. |
| 0:17.6 | You clearly came prepared. |
| 0:19.2 | You've been thinking about this. |
| 0:20.2 | I have. |
| 0:21.2 | Catherine, what about you? |
| 0:23.0 | What would you do with a billion dollars? |
| 0:25.0 | I would do whatever Jigger tells me to do. |
| 0:28.0 | Jigger, what would you do with a billion dollars? |
| 0:30.0 | I don't know, but I guess we're going to find out in the next couple of years. |
| 0:33.4 | That's right. We'll get to why I'm asking that question a bit later in the show, but first of all, |
| 0:42.0 | if I had a billion dollars I might put some of that money into commercial solar and if I was you know |
| 0:47.6 | Investing seriously in commercial solar I'd probably want some kind of insurance product and I might turn to energetic insurance. |
| 0:54.0 | Energetic insurance levels the solar playing field so project developers can have comfort |
| 0:59.7 | and they can have something similar to a FICO score in residential solar that enables them to finance |
| 1:05.3 | commercial solar projects and turn around portfolio refinancing faster. |
| 1:09.7 | If you want to learn more and submit your projects today go to energetic insurance.com |
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