Supporting Sub-Saharan Africa’s Municipalities with Sustainable Energy Transitions

Urbanisation rates in Africa are the highest in the world, and in most Sub Saharan countries service delivery is inadequate to keep up with the needs. African populations remain amongst the poorest in the world, and efforts to achieve the energy-related dimensions of the Millennium Development Goals have in most cases not had significant impact on urban populations.

The situation can be summarised as...

Solar Nano-Grids (SONG): An appropriate solution for meeting community energy needs?

Since the first solar home system was introduced in Bangladesh in 1996, two million more have been installed throughout the nation under a massive programme initiated by the government of Bangladesh (through two principle organizations, IDCOL and Grameen Shakti), with the help of financing from international funding bodies. The research undertaken by the SONG team will be looking at the social, political and...

Sustainable Thermal Energy Service Partnerships (STEPS)

The provision of clean, sustainable thermal energy services in rural areas of developing countries is an area so far neglected by academia, however it is projected that more than 2.6 billion people will remain without such services by 2030. The research undertaken in this project will study existing experiences of providing thermal energy for cooking, space heating and sanitation using different approaches, particularly the “fee-for-...

Green Growth Diagnostics for Africa

This project seeks to develop a new Green Growth Diagnostics methodology and apply it to two African countries: Kenya and Ghana.

The original growth diagnostics methodology was developed by Haussmann et al (2004) to identify the key constraints holding back economic growth from its full potential. Their approach was driven by the needs of policymakers facing the dilemma that most problems have multiple causes, but governments cannot tackle all of...

Renewable Energy And Decentralisation (READ)

Over the last ten years African governments have moved increasingly towards decentralized budgets, giving local authorities increased powers and budgets to govern areas that include both rural and urban population. Yet while the larger urban areas have municipal authorities charged with understanding and implementing new ways of supplying energy to their urban citizens, the authorities governing Africa’s rural poor in small and medium towns in the...

Energy from Rice Straw

Rice is the staple food crop in Asia, where 91% of it is grown and consumed. For every 4 tonnes of rice grain, 6 tonnes of straw is produced, which in Asia amounts to about 550 million tonnes of straw and 110 million tonnes of husks each year. The husks go to the mills with the rice grains, where they are separated and are often used for energy purposes, but rice straw has become a significant waste problem across the continent. In most agricultural systems, crop...

Energy and Low Income Tropical Housing (ELITH)

This research programme is intended to identify, and then begin to propagate, methods of reducing the energy consumption of low-income housing in tropical countries. The topic of ‘energy efficient’, ‘sustainable’ or ‘eco’ housing has attracted huge interest in Europe and rich countries generally since about 1990. This has lead to new designs, materials, publications and regulations. For tropical housing however, in which energy usage is not...

Agro-industries and clean energy in africa (AGRICEN)

AGRICEN looks at how agro-industries in sub-Saharan Africa can position themselves to become important players in the delivery of clean energy services. The project combines new approaches to political economy analysis with business development, innovation systems, financial engineering and participatory approaches, to understand the potential role that agro industries can play in widening energy access to rural communities.

By the...

Understanding the barriers to the introduction and uptake of clean/improved cookstoves in Southern Africa

Improved cook stoves (ICS) have been promoted by charities and governments in developing countries since the late 1940s. A range of approaches have been tried, including ‘build-your-own stove’ projects, community-focused schemes, manufacturing stoves in remote villages and more recently, market-based activities.

In some countries, these new stoves have been well-received. In...

Effective energy efficiency policy implementation targeting “new Modern Energy CONsumers” in the Greater Mekong Sub-region

MECON was a two year research project, which ran from 2013 to 2015. The MECON project investigated the potential for increased energy efficiency amongst ‘new Modern Energy CONsumers’ (MECON) households. These were defined as households that were connected to the electricity grid, and which have a daily income of US$ 2-5. A continuous rise in average incomes and an...