Publications and Reports
The World Bank Africa Energy Unit publishes a variety of reports focused on Africa's energy crisis and ways to address it. Below is a sample of those publications.
AFREA funds support the implementation of the Africa Energy Unit (AFTEG) strategy and its clients, through analytical and advisory activities, while also providing recipient-executed technical assistance and investment grants that help speed up the deployment of renewable energy systems regionally.
Energy poverty is a global problem: access to energy services is crucial to meet basic household needs, deliver and access public services, and generate income. Less than 10 percent of Sub-Saharan (SSA) rural households have access to electricity, with an overall access rate below 25 percent. One of the main obstacles for SSA electrification practitioners is the difficulty in obtaining practical and timely knowledge on how to overcome economic, technical, institutional, and political barriers to electrification in their day-to-day work.
The purpose of this paper is to present stakeholders in the Liberian energy sector -with options that might expand access and modernize energy services. To this end, the authors have attempted to analyze the data available and to bring international lessos to bear on the case of Liberia. There are several potential pathways to consider, though the aim is one: supporting the sustainable development of access to energy services for the people of Liberia.
The paper reviews the ways biomass is developed and how supply and demand issues can be managed, particularly with respect to household energy use. The Paper also sets out a framework outlining how the World Bank can assist Sub-Saharan countries with resolving issues related to wood fuel biomass energy in SSA. The Paper intends to not only draw renewed attention to the need to develop the wood fuel biomass energy sector in SSA in a sustainable way, but also help facilitate the dialogue and partnership on policies and reforms with client countries, and enable Bank staff to actively engage more development partners and the private sector, and build bridges for emerging financing mechanisms related to climate change.
With grid electricity services or diesel electricity generation prohibitively expensive in remote areas, the attributes of solar photovoltaics (PV) seemed ideally suited to providing energy services in areas where electricity supply by conventional means is difficult and expensive. While solar PVs have been deployed across the remote and rural areas in developing countries to meet essential service needs of communities, its long-term sustainability has been below par, in part due to lack of attention to proper design and provision of long-term maintenance services. Drawing on experiences and good practices from throughout the world, the Photovoltaics for Community Service Facilities: Guidance for Sustainability fills the knowledge gap and offers a guide to practitioners beginning with the process of selecting a solar photovoltaic system to planning for its long-term operation and maintenance.
Indicators and Benchmarking in Sub-Saharan Africa. Performance of electric utilities is essential for monitoring the electricity sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
The ASK is a major data collection resulting from an in depth, joint exercise by a World Bank team which included, amongst other tasks, the selection of Key Performance Indices (KPIs). The ASK database presents electricity sector data for the countries is Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It includes over 130 series and more than 23,000 data points for 47 countries and 42 electric utilities in SSA for the period 1990-2007. It covers five areas: power system capacity, power system operations, service provision to customers and financial characteristics of the sector and the utility.
Africa’s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation is an in depth study of all Africa’s infrastructure challenges including the energy sector. It concluded, “Africa’s abysmal power situation has resulted in chronic problems in over 30 countries, impeding growth and productivity. The AICD found that paltry generation capacity, limited electrification, low power demand, unreliable service and sky-rocketing prices caused serious bottlenecks in the sector. To fix the problem, countries would have to spend US$40 billion annually over a 10-year period and take key measures to improve efficiency of power utilities. Regional solutions to power are key ingredients to reducing costs and harnessing efficient large-scale technologies.” AICD has also created a website dedicated to this research. The Africa Energy Unit staff contributed to the Chapter entitled: Underpowered: The State of the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2008.
(Slideshow: Africa’s Infrastructure.)
The objective of the three year AEI project is to create and sustain a living body of practical knowledge and a network of Sub-Saharan Africa practitioners in the area of design and implementation of rural, peri-urban and urban on-grid and off-grid electrification programs.
2008 Power purchase agreements (PPAs) are central to the health of power sectors, particularly in countries that have opted for single-buyer market structure. The capital costs of electricity generating plants often constitute a large share of the final cost of power delivered to retail customers.
The purpose of the toolkit is to facilitate knowledge transfer among World Bank Group staff and clients on how to design and prepare projects that support the development of cross-border power transmission infrastructure within the framework of regional power pooling mechanisms.
From the First Forum of Energy Ministers in Africa (FEMA), 2005. Paper commissioned by The Forum for Energy Ministers in Africa (FEMA) for the UN World Summit held in September 2005, with support from ESMAP, a trust-funded energy program managed by the World Bank Group.
The goal of this study is to examine the impact of power sector reform on poor people in Africa by tracing the relationship between this process and certain key factors that directly affect the poor, such as access to electricity, the affordability of electricity services, quality and reliability of supply, access to such social services as electrified clinics and schools, economic development, and net impacts on public finances.
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