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Page added on March 10, 2014
18% of global population lack access to electricity
2014 marks the start of the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), the international effort to bring modern and sustainable energy to everyone on the planet. IEA data collected over more than a decade have been vital to the push already, establishing the size of the problem and helping determine the resources necessary to allow every woman, man and child to benefit from the security and convenience that most already take for granted.
In the latest edition of its annual flagship publication, World Energy Outlook (WEO), the IEA provides the most recent estimate: nearly 1.3 billion people, or 18% of the world population, lacked access to electricity in 2011. While the number of those without electricity declined by 9 million from the previous year, the global population increased by about 76 million in 2011, according to the United Nations estimates, to top 7 billion.
And the modest decline in those lacking electricity obscured the fact that energy poverty either stagnated or worsened in some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, as population growth outpaced energy access efforts. More than 95% of people without access to electricity live in sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia. Over two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan Africa had no modern energy in 2011, and the number of people without electricity access there will soon overtake the total in developing Asia. Among the far more numerous people in developing Asia, 17% did not have access to electricity in 2011.
As a special focus within its World Energy Outlook 2014 series, the IEA is conducting its most comprehensive analytical study to date of the energy outlook for Africa. Among other topics, the report will examine which policies, investments and infrastructure are required to expand access to reliable and affordable electricity supply on the continent.
Modern energy: vital to many development goals
The new push by the United Nations for universal access is part of the growing recognition, highlighted in the WEO, that modern energy is crucial to achieving a range of social and economic goals relating to poverty, health, education, equality and environmental sustainability. About 80 developing countries have signed up to the SE4All initiative, including many with the largest populations of those lacking access to modern energy. In addition, IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven is among the leaders who serve on the Advisory Board to the SE4All initiative.
The IEA joined with the World Bank to lead a project to create the Global Tracking Framework last year. That tool calculates the starting point to benchmark SE4All progress towards its 2030 objectives of achieving universal access to modern energy services while also doubling both the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. The Global Tracking Framework published 2010 data for all of these objectives and has helped decision makers fully appreciate the scale of action that needs to be taken to meet the 2030 goals.
The latest WEO includes more recent and detailed data, highlighting areas of improvement. More people gained access to electricity in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, South Africa and Sri Lanka in 2011. India remained the country with the largest number of people without access to electricity, at 306 million, or a quarter of the population.
The previous edition of the WEO found that nearly USD 1 trillion in cumulative investment would bring universal access by 2030. That equates to USD 49 billion a year – or about five times what was being invested in 2009.
Under its central projections, the WEO shows a decline of more than 20% in the number of people without access to electricity by 2030, but that would still leave 12% of the world population without modern energy. The projections see the total number of people without electricity in 2030 falling by nearly half in developing Asia, to 324 million. But it will rise by 8% in sub-Saharan Africa, to 645 million.
The best news is that the current trajectory is expected to result in universal access in China, Latin America and the Middle East by 2030. Brazil, with its successful “Luz para Todos” (Light for All) programme, expects full access within a few years. Besides continued economic growth and urbanisation, which are general trends that support efforts to improve electricity access in emerging countries, there are specific programmes like the Power Africa initiative, which channel financing and technical expertise to assist national electrification plans.
Clean cooking and heating facilities
Access to electricity is not the only focus of IEA analysis of energy poverty. The WEO tracks the number of people who do not have clean cooking facilities, a far larger share of the global population at 38%. These 2.6 billion people rely on traditional biomass, usually wood, and their ranks increased by 54 million in 2011, as population growth outstripped improvements in providing better equipment. A further 200 million to 300 million people rely on coal for household cooking and heating. Recent studies find that the household pollution from use of solid fuels kills 3.5 million people each year, and 4 million when the pollution’s effect on outdoor air is considered.
The WEO central projections see less of an improvement by 2030 in both the number and share of people cooking and heating with traditional biomass compared with those connecting to modern energy. The number without clean cooking facilities will shrink by less than 120 million people, to 30% of the population. While nearly 200 million Chinese will stop using traditional biomass, almost the same number more will be using it in sub-Saharan Africa. IEA
21 Comments on "18% of global population lack access to electricity"
rollin on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 5:21 pm
A commercial brought to you by BAU.
bobinget on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 5:49 pm
Exactly HOW all this added capacity is to be generated
must be chapter two.
On a European or North American model individual households are expected to pay fees for electricity based on consumption. There is no way this is evenly remotely possible in the developing world. Without
RELIABLE electricity, development, (money earning capacity) is simply impossible. No private lenders will
pony up cash with no history of repayment. The average monthly utility bill in America is equal to six months wages in so called undeveloped countries named.
The record for building out capacity in war-torn regions is hardly encouraging.
Funds must be diverted from defense projects to “empower” billions of humanity. Again and again
we are confronted by lack of funding for clean water
and power but always, money for warfare is always available.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 6:09 pm
Expect an electricity deficit trend to become apparent even in developed regions within 5 years. We will start experiencing an unreliable grid in many locations. For these reasons and others I recommend small, low tech, and low power solar altE power sources. I do not see the advantage of a complex, expensive, and all inclusive altE power supply for residential. Utilize the grid for the high horse power items. When the SHTF do we really need A/C, washers/dryers, and electric ovens. We can manage with other options. Put enough altE power in to keep your lights on, power some electronics, and small appliances. Electricity is the most complex aspect to our complex society it will be the first to take a hit when society takes a hit. The internet is in the same sinking ship.
andya on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 6:47 pm
Well on the upside 1.3 billion people are already living with 100% renewable energy.
Joe Clarkson on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 8:14 pm
Bobinget raises some important points, but the cost of electricity is not the most important. I was involved in a project that provided solar electric CFL lighting to several hundred remote farmers in Fiji. They were willing to pay monthly costs that were the equivalent of $2.00 per kWh because the alternatives (kerosene and alkaline D-cells) were even more expensive.
The heart of the system was a secure battery storage module that included a charge controller and a magnetic card reader. It was developed by Shell and first put to use in South Africa, but was abandoned by Shell when they exited the solar business. Users would purchase a new magnetic card at the post office every month to insert in the card reader. A roving technician would manage the batteries and make repairs. The system worked fine for several years, but I have no idea whether it is still working.
My comment is simply to illustrate that there are indeed real possibilities for providing at least a little power to even very poor people. The benefits of even one or two 10W electric light bulbs are so dramatic that the very poor will gladly pay for them if given a chance.
J-Gav on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 8:57 pm
Joe – Yeah, I agree, millions more could get minimal electricity quite cheaply with. At least enough to do their homework by in the dark when you live in the tropics. Worked on a project on Siberut Island off the west coast of Sumatra a few years ago to do just that. The 300 people in that village love their bulbs as opposed to the petroleum lamps which tended to occasionally burn one of their kid’s faces off …
action on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 9:04 pm
Rabbits fuck less
DC on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 9:53 pm
Well, there is *another* way to look at this ‘problem’ you know. up until, about 150 years ago+/-, 100% of humanity lacked access to electricity. And so did all of our ancestors going back well, as far as you care to measure it.The lack of electrical power couldn’t have been that bad, or none of would be here to talk about it right? 🙂 Now dont get me wrong, I think electricity is awesome, but the core idea this article is pushing is that the entire world needs to be just like ‘us’. The goal of people that think this way, is not to alleviate hardship-but to integrate everyone into a capitalist-consumer type relationship. And their are few better ways to do that, than to tie people to the ‘system’ than through complex, fixed FF power grids that require huge capital costs to finance. And as we should know by now-they are not above using the imagery and language of ‘development’ and reducing poverty to do it.
Does anyone here subscribe to the notion that people are poor strictly because they lack electricity? There are a lot of things wrong with this argument of course, but the ones that push it, frame the issue in such a way that their argument seems self-evident. Give em an electrical grid-and the poverty problem is well on its way to being defeated. Or so they so…
Northwest Resident on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 10:11 pm
Good question, DC. How the hell did our ancestors survive without electricity for so many thousands of years? How could they possibly have been happy or comfortable?
The answer might lie in a short story by Eudora Welty — “The Traveling Salesman”. In this story we find a man, a salesman, driven to succeed, obsessed by his constant memories of his uncle who went into the African jungle with nothing and came out a wealthy man. The salesman wants riches, power, all those things that our modern society has taught us that we must have to be healthy and happy and “normal”. But the salesman has a big problem — his heart and his nerves are stressed to the maximum, he feels faint and thinks he is having a heart attack. And so, far out in the country, he pulls his car up a dirt road and finds a small shack. Inside the shack are a simple couple with their child — no electricity, no running water, but yet they appear healthy, strong, happy. The salesman can’t understand, but he finally realizes before his death that health and happiness is not dependent on material things or on modern conveniences, but on the love and companionship shared between people, on the simple but hard labor that grows the food and tends the animals. It was too late for the salesman, if I remember the ending correctly, but it isn’t too late for us.
Some people think they can’t live without a hot shower every morning. I know, because I’m one of them. But in reality, I’ll do just fine without, and so will everybody else.
Right now, we’re all just Borgs plugged into the system, some of us more or less so than others. We have been absorbed. But for how much longer — that is the question.
Joe Clarkson on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 10:26 pm
DC, electricity is just another way of providing services that everyone wants, even the poor. One of the most universal and most sought after of those services is light to see by at night. If people can’t use the tiny amount of electricity it takes, they will use something else, typically at a greater cost in money, effort and health.
I have lived without electricity and agree that the lack did not make me ‘poor’, but wanting to help people get a little electric light at night does not make one a cultural imperialist either. I don’t think you will find many people trying to shove electricity down the throats of poor people who would rather do without.
If you don’t believe me, just ask a poor person whether they would like to pay a very small amount of money for electric light, or pay more for kerosene (or perhaps make lamp oil themselves). Virtually every one will say “Yes” to the electric light just because it is so superior to other choices.
DC on Mon, 10th Mar 2014 10:35 pm
Humanity built extremely complex and powerful civilizations in the past, without a single barrel of refined petroleum or a KW of electricity. Of course, many of the civilizations used human and animals slaves to do it. But thats another topic. This does not mean I personally feel, ‘we should not have’ electricity. But rather, that we should question hard, these type of ‘initiatives’ and what they are really trying to accomplish. I remember a researcher talking about some of the people that used to live in the deep amazon rain forest. They had no concept of ‘wealth’ or ‘property’,or money, or even of ‘development’. After we civilized them. they now have all the ‘gifts’ of western civilization. They fight,they drink alcohol, they wear nike shoes and t-shirts with cokes logos on them and live in shantys. Mainly because uS corporations and others want access to oil, land and minerals.
One thing that always stands out about about western ‘aid’ directed at poor people, is its always on our terms. I cant think of one single instance where western NGOs or gov’ts asked any poor people or anyone representing them, what kind of development they wanted. Or if they even wanted western ‘aid’ at all. One thing I can say for certain, the option of being ‘left alone’, is never on the table is it?
And yes, those people in the amazon, and the few small groups around the world that were until recently, isolated from the great AC/DC capitalist drive-shop consume party are officially ‘poor’ now, requiring all sorts of ‘aid’ from the missionary industrial complex and other faux NGO’s.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 12:53 am
The rural areas here in Missouri did quite well before electricity which didn’t become widespread until the 50’s. Electricity is necessary for the large urban areas but here where I am we could do without it if we could bring back many of the old ways and products. You can’t hardly bring back the old ways or products in the majority of the cities in the world today over 10,000 people. The entire infrastructure is geared to electric power even in the poorest of 3rd world cities. The question of bringing more development to the poor at this point is suicide for them. Let them keep their substance living. Give them some low tech inexpensive solar lighting and solar hot water. Give them water purifying equipment and more sophisticated food cookers but keep them low tech and cheap. Educate them into permaculture, resilience, and sustainability ideas. Teach them how to be humans in connection to their mother earth. Show them all the ways modern man has destroyed himself, his environment, and his neighbors. Let them know that the population is too high and we all face a die off if there is no effort made to have smaller families. Finally tell them there is some hope but very little once modern man’s poisons and weapons can’t be managed. No, today’s development is exploitation pure and simple of the poor by the rich. The whole development theme is wrong. More development today means loss of traditional skills, habitat destruction, and population growth destroying the local environment in the process. The end result is another local support system dependent on the global. And DC, China is the biggest culprit now initiating this destruction.
Yeti on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 1:12 am
Wow DC, no grey-zone in your world regarding the West, is there?
A nice side-step to Joe’s post by the way.
How about the millions that already pay to have some lighting at night but could have better options?
http://www.economist.com/node/21560983
Is this “The West” trying to take advantage of these people?
Makati1 on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 2:19 am
“18% of global population lack access to electricity”
That means that 18% of the world’s population will not even notice the collapse of the other 82%. Another 30+-% will hardly be inconvenienced because they have so few ‘necessities’ to lose and still have the skills to survive. It is the 50+- percent that have some degree of the Western lifestyle, or the desire to have it, that will be hurt the most. Where are you on this scale?
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 2:24 am
Makati, the 18% will starve when they don’t get their food support from the exports from the West. China will be 1st in line to the declining food exports and price out the poor.
rollin on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 3:07 am
I think we better provide them with screens and doors first. Once the lights go on the bugs will swarm them.
GregT on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 5:13 am
Davy,
I have visited, and lived briefly with some of those 18%. Not only did they not have any electricity, they had no cars, no bicycles, no store bought clothes, food, or goods. The only thing that they did have access to, were drugs, but they needed to travel days by foot, or boat to get to them. These people would notice next to zero difference, if industrial society ceased to exist tomorrow. Other than the earth becoming healthier over time, of course.
DC on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 6:00 am
Yeti, thats a perfect example of what I was talking-well done!
That article is FULL of exactly what I am talking about.
Like this extract:
Q/ found in its trials in Tanzania that households often spent more than 10% of their income on kerosene, and other studies have put the figure as high as 25%. And kerosene does not merely eat up household income that could be spent on other things. It is also dangerous. Kerosene lanterns, a century-old technology, are fire hazards. The wicks smoke, the glass cracks, and the light may be too weak to read by. The World Health Organisation says the fine particles in kerosene fumes cause chronic pulmonary disease. Burning kerosene also produces climate-changing carbon-dioxide emissions.
The solution? LED lights of course. The production of LED lights, made in Chinese factories for western corporations, shipped to Africa on huge oil belching container ships-and likely run thought a vast network of highly bureaucratized western NGOs(were everyone gets a ‘cut’), however, is perfectly clean and poses no negative impacts to either humans or the environment. None of the ‘techs’ being proposed by the ecnomist are remotely clean, either in manufacture or disposal-or even distribution.
Like I say, our notions of how and why, we help the ‘poor’ in far off lands seem fundamental wrong-headed.
Or this:
Q/The M-KOPA system consists of a base-station with a solar panel, three lamps and a charging kit for phones—an entire electrical system for a small house that would normally cost around $200. Customers in Kenya pay $30 up front and then pay off the balance in small installments using their mobile phones. As long as they keep making payments, the system provides free light and power, and eventually they own it outright.
Note: AS LONG THEY KEEP MAKING PAYMENTS. Sounds familiar somehow,where have I heard that before?, oyea from my banker. As long as I keep making payments-I have a house and a piece of plastic to buy the things I need to live. And I too, will own them outright. In another 30 years or so…
Small wonder the economist is so on board with ‘helping the poor. The underlying idea seems to be, lets help them be not poor, so they can buy more stuff-and preferably on a fixed plan to.And after it falls apart-buy a new one, and it will likely be new improved by that point.
Like I say, that article is larded with examples of ‘western’ corporations selling ‘stuff’ to Africans, and likely built in part with resources stolen from them by the west in the first place-and sold back to them for a profit-not out of the goodness of corporate hearts.
That is the *Economist* mag your linking to, not, Better Saints and Gardens. Everything in that article is about how western corporations plan to cash in on 3rd world poverty,and they even do it on payment plan. Were you trying to be ironic? Or did do really think I said something wrong?
As for the grey area. Im not sure what you meant. ‘We’ operate almost exclusively in that region. That murky,hard to define place were who is who and what is what, is seldom very clear.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 6:51 am
Greg T, the point is not a moral one with my statement of 18% will die. I like you feel strongly about the rape of humanity by the rich. But yes the poor are kept alive now in so many cases by food surpluses that when gone many will perish. Like it or not DC the west you hate is supporting much of the poor world directly or indirectly through food calories. I am not saying it is fair but it is reality. This is often overlooked when people here speak of the demise of the west without mentioning the consequences. It is sad, there is enough food for everyone now, barely. Yet, the economics are not there. If you think the food can be made economic to all the world poor it will not work. The whole structure of the food system is in overshoot now and is unsustainable due to fossil energy inputs. The economics are like oil profits must be made to produce. Basically we as a world would have to end the overshoot of our carrying capacity and population. The world will have to return to sustainable subsistence agriculture or further descend to hunter gather stage. In the mean time we can blame and complain or we can at least accept we are here and many lives hang in the balance. Subtle choices can have huge consequences at this point. There is no returning to something more equitable and fair without 9 out of 10 dying. From this point forward it is nothing but difficult choices. These are the realities of overshoot. The beginning stages of collapse will be a horrible thing from the standpoint of the marginal populations in the world. We are very close to mass starvation.
Makati1 on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 1:10 am
“…We are very close to mass starvation.”
BS! The US is so over fed that they have a deadly obesity problem. They are the ones that will suffer the greatest pain when they finally hit the food wall. Wither by drought, high prices, or both, they will be brought down the food chain a long way. 47 million already need government food stamps to manage.
As for the rest of the world, yes, some countries, especially in the middle east and Europe, are going to be hurting as they cannot grow enough for their ballooning populations. Perhaps even China, but they are already doing something about that. They own farmland in many countries and even the US.
If you do not live in Asia, you really have no idea of it’s situation or abilities. All you have is the MSN BS. The “Bad Country of the Month” propaganda. Seems the West cannot exist without an ‘enemy’ to distract the sheeple from the corruption of their own governments.
BTW: Just killing the world beef industry would feed 3+ billion more people. Do some research.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 1:34 am
I stand by my point that Asia has the largest risk because it is the farthest in population overshoot, environmental destruction, and soon to be economic contraction. China has nowhere near enough food production to satisfy its population. It will outbid many of these lessor Asian countries like the Philippian that are less economically strong. The US and Brazil are the leading food producers in the world. The rest of the world relies on these two countries to cover its food needs