Energy

Mobile phones provide a useful insight for energy: not that you can leapfrog a modern power system, but that most energy use happens out of sight. In fact, less than 1% of the energy needed for a smartphone is used by the phone.

Todd Moss, CGD senior fellow and executive director of the recently-launched Energy for Growth Hub, on why the Hub was created, how big the energy gap is, and why the tradeoff between residential and industrial energy isn’t really a tradeoff at all.

Todd Moss, CGD senior fellow and executive director of the recently-launched Energy for Growth Hub, on why the Hub was created, how big the energy gap is, and why the tradeoff between residential and industrial energy isn’t really a tradeoff at all.

While energy advocates have mostly focused on the 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa that lack access to electricity at home, the region’s power shortages are especially damaging to firms. Companies across the continent suffer from unreliable power supplies, affecting productivity, emplo...

Eighteen months ago, we blogged here about Kenya’s superfast electricity connection rate. The country had grown from 27 percent to 55 percent access in just three years, putting themselves on a fast-track toward near universal access by 2020. While this lightning progress was exciting, ne...