Energy

Energy is essential for economic growth and the basis of modern lifestyles, yet more than a billion people worldwide live without access to electricity.

More from the Series

POLICY PAPERS
Financing for Whom by Whom? Complexities of Advancing Energy Access in India
Kartikeya Singh
July 25, 2017
This paper finds that end-user financing (i.e. consumer subsidies and tax rebates) is relatively ineffective at enhancing sales of off-grid solar technologies in India. If the government is to make meaningful progress toward its national goal to extend a constant supply of electricity to every house...
Blog Post
Are India’s Government-subsidized Solar Shops Thriving or Barely Surviving?
Jennifer Richmond
and
Kartikeya Singh
June 15, 2017
We present results below from a survey of shop owners who are part of the Indian government’s Akshay Urja Solar Shops program. To our knowledge, the Akshay Urja program has not previously been evaluated. These results build on a case study featured in an upcoming CGD policy paper on clean ener...
POLICY PAPERS
The Digital Transformation and Disruptive Technologies: Challenges and Solutions for the Electricity Sector in African Markets
Ijeoma Onyeji-Nwogu et al.
May 30, 2017
Blog Post
Trump’s Retrogressive Executive Order on Climate Change: A Development Perspective in Three Charts
Jonah Busch
March 29, 2017
On Tuesday the Trump Administration dropped a long-feared executive order on climate change. There’s no sugarcoating it—this order is an attempted assault by the administration on the climate we all depend on, the world’s poorest people most of all. Nevertheless, just how bad ...
Blog Post
Does the World Bank RISE to the Challenge of Measuring Energy Access?
Todd Moss
and
Gailyn Portelance
March 17, 2017
The World Bank recently released a "global scorecard for policymakers" called the Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE). Here are a few of our takeaways from an initial read of the energy access section.
Blog Post
Can We Have Our Forests and Burn Them Too?
Frances Seymour
March 01, 2017
The biomass energy industry, US Senators, and the FAO would have you think that burning wood to produce electricity is a good idea for the climate. Think again.
Blog Post
A Corporate Giant’s Role in Reducing Climate Change and Promoting Development: A Conversation with Unilever’s Paul Polman
Frances Seymour
February 15, 2017
Unilever is the world’s single largest end-user of palm oil, purchasing nearly 3 percent of global palm oil production. Whilst we can not do everything alone , with this scale comes responsibility—to make sure that our supply chains are not driving tropical deforestation, and to tackle e...