{"id":980,"date":"2015-04-01T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T11:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=980"},"modified":"2016-10-28T13:15:18","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T12:15:18","slug":"access-to-electricity-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/04\/01\/access-to-electricity-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Access to Electricity in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>While in Lagos, I experienced <a title=\"no regular power supply\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/02\/17\/black-out-excitement-power-problems-in-nigeria\" target=\"_blank\">what it means not to have a regular power supply<\/a>.<\/strong> So I was happy to hear about &#8220;<strong>repurpose schoolbags<\/strong>&#8220;, schoolbags with a solar panel that charges while kids are in school. In the evening, they\u00a0can be used as a study lamp. This <a title=\"Indigenous innovation\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/01\/14\/a-new-era-of-indigenous-entrepreneurship\/\" target=\"_blank\">indigenous innovation<\/a> was\u00a0created by two South African women.<\/p>\n<a class=\"inline-twitter-link inline-tweet-click\" href=\"#\" onclick=\"inline_tweet_sharer_open_win('https:\\\/\\\/twitter.com\\\/intent\\\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.iese.edu%2Fafrica%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F980%2F&text=Innovations+like+the+%E2%80%9Crepurpose+schoolbag%E2%80%9D+are+to+be+celebrated.+But+the+underlying+problem+of+electricity+access+still+needs+to+be+solved.+');\" title=\"Tweet This!\">Innovations like the &#8220;repurpose schoolbag&#8221; are to be celebrated. But the underlying problem of electricity access still needs to be solved. <span class=\"non-dashicons\"> <\/span><\/a>\n<p>Close to 50 % of the people without access to electricity are in Africa. A look at SSA (sub-Saharan Africa) estimates indicate that:*<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u2013 more than 620 million people don&#8217;t have access to \u00a0electricity;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>electricity consumption per capita is less than what is\u00a0needed to power a 50-watt light bulb on a continuous basis;<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u2013 close to 5% of annual sales are lost due to power outages;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>\u2013 fuel for back-up generation costs at least $5 billion (including for both businesses and households).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_983\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-983\" style=\"width: 735px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/03\/2014-04-27-11.16.26-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-983\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/03\/2014-04-27-11.16.26-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Powerless lamp\" width=\"735\" height=\"551\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/03\/2014-04-27-11.16.26-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/03\/2014-04-27-11.16.26-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/03\/2014-04-27-11.16.26-1-500x375.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 735px) 100vw, 735px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-983\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lamp for households with no electricity access<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s clear that this has important social and economic costs. Some governments have not created the electricity infrastructure that they should have. See why this is the case in Nigeria\u00a0<a title=\"Electricity infraestructure in Nigeria\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/02\/17\/nigerias-development\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But the future can be brighter. If $200 billion is spent over the period to 2040, the figures will look different:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2013 950 million people will gain access to electricity;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>the total number of people without electricity access will decrease \u00a0 by 15%,\u00a0though as much as 530 million people will still be in the same situation (this takes <a title=\"Population Growth\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/03\/19\/a-young-population-a-youthful-mentality\/\" target=\"_blank\">population growth<\/a> into account).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Despite poor electricity supply, GDP has grown by nearly 6% per year across SSA. <\/strong>Imagine what the future could hold in a scenario with a regular power supply!<\/p>\n<p>*Information provided by the <a title=\"World Energy Outlook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldenergyoutlook.org\/publications\/weo-2014\" target=\"_blank\">World Energy Outlook 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While in Lagos, I experienced what it means not to have a regular power supply. So I was happy to hear about &#8220;repurpose schoolbags&#8220;, schoolbags with a solar panel that charges while kids are in school. In the evening, they\u00a0can be used as a study lamp. This indigenous innovation was\u00a0created by two South African women. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99579,492,993],"tags":[85375,93571,157,240,1080,77618,73804],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-economic-and-institutional-context","category-development","category-living-conditions","tag-african-women","tag-energy-porverty","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-innovation","tag-nigeria","tag-power-industry","tag-world-energy-outlook","megacategoria-mc-africa","megacategoria-mc-strategy"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1020,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions\/1020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}