IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2014 - 94

in my view (continued from p. 96)
World Bank's record in
Providing Electricity access
The world Bank's engagements in client
countries in the developing world encompass the entire electricity sector value
chain-from generation to transmission
and distribution (T&D) to direct connections to consumers, the results of which
are summarized and publicly available in
the Bank's corporate scorecard on energy.
These indicators-on generation capacity, T&D lines, and people provided with
access-provide a cumulative snapshot of
results achieved between 2000 and 2013.
world Bank-supported programs (including both closed and active projects)
have provided 42 million people with new
access to electricity for projects approved
between 2000 and 2013, of which 17.5
million people gained access as a direct
result of Bank group financing, while
24 million people are "inferred" to have
gained access. Direct access is measured
as those who have benefited from newgrid or off-grid household connections.
Inferred access numbers count those who
benefited from world Bank-funded generation capacity, a proportion of whose output is reasonably estimated to be powering
new household connections. Inferred access is a conservative estimate of the new
connections that could have been supplied
as a result of power generation projects
supported by the world Bank.
A handful of countries were responsible for the bulk of the results. In Bangladesh, sustained Bank engagement in both
rural-grid and off-grid solar home systems
resulted in 9.7 million people gaining direct access. In Cambodia, Kenya, Mali,
and rwanda, a total of more than 5 million
people gained direct access to electricity
through Bank-supported projects. In the
remaining countries, the scale of engagement was smaller, providing electrification
to a total of 2.7 million people.
Inferred access was provided in 26
projects spanning 19 countries with low
rates of access to electricity-mostly in
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In
South Asia, Bank-supported generating
capacity was estimated to have opened
access to electricity for 15.2 million
94

ieee power & energy magazine

people and 12.1 million of them are in
India. The Bank's generation capacity
expansion may have contributed to electrify 9.2 million people in Sub-Saharan
Africa. The Democratic republic of
Congo and Uganda led the way, with
new generating capacity inferred to have
offered connections to 3.4 million and
1.3 million people, respectively.

a new Way of thinking
about access to Electricity
Measuring energy access is a complex
task as multidimensional issues need to
be taken into consideration. Currently
available binary metrics are convenient,
but they fail to capture important aspects
of the problem, such as multiple access
solutions, supply problems, and a differentiation between access to electricity
supply versus electricity services. A multitier metric proposed in "global Tracking Framework report" addresses these
definitional and measurement issues.
This framework consists of two distinct yet intertwined electricity measurements: access to electricity supply and the
use of electricity services. The framework
is technology neutral and accommodates
grid, mini-grid, and off-grid solutions to
reflect a wide range of electricity access
levels. The first metric-access to electricity supply-is based on increasing levels
of attributes across tiers, covering:
✔ quantity (peak available capacity)
✔ duration
✔ evening supply
✔ affordability
✔ legality
✔ quality.
A progression along this hierarchy of
tiers is projected as more and more
electricity services become feasible
and available.
The second metric-access to electricity services-is based on ownership
of appliances that requires an increasing
level of electricity supply to use them.
This distinction between supply and use
highlights the fact that a higher level of
electricity supply does not automatically
result in greater access to electricity services. Likewise, poor electricity supply

does not constrain affluent households
from gaining access to energy services
through backup solutions such as generators and inverters.
The multitier metric is the way ahead
to track energy access status across countries and over time. It provides nuanced
information on different dimensions of
energy supply that could better inform
policy formulation, investment planning,
and project design. It also shows how to
evaluate the contribution of any energy
project in improving attributes of energy.
Finally, it allows countries to set their own
targets to reach universal access by 2030.
To apply this framework, the world
Bank is leading an effort to conduct household surveys using standardized household energy questionnaires, whose purpose is to arrive at a diagnostic assessment
of the energy situation in selected areas.

a Multistakeholder Effort
to achieve universal access
The world Bank group has supported
energy access initiatives through lending
(including grants), technical assistance
activities, and making global expertise
available to its clients. A development
institution such as the world Bank can
support only a handful of programs. This
transformative process will require ambitious action by numerous stakeholders
including governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and
civil society organizations that, together,
aim to achieve universal access by 2030.
while daunting, this challenge is also
an opportunity to unleash innovation in
both public and private sectors to expand
access and make service available in an
affordable, reliable, sustainable manner to
the world's millions of unserved people.
There are new and tested ways that can
be adopted and customized to move this
agenda forward. The world Bank group
is contributing not only financially but also
by sharing lessons from its experience. It is
supporting demonstration projects, as well
as making its convening power available
to build consensus on how best to tackle
this complex task and achieve universal
p&e
access to electricity by 2030.
july/august 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2014