The energy access landscape is shifting—today, it’s not just remote communities that are underserved, but also those near the grid. In sub-Saharan Africa for instance, more than 600 million people still lack electricity, and yet 63% live within an hour of a city!
Conventional grid approaches are not keeping pace, yet decentralized technologies alone are also not scaling at the pace needed, or delivering on the full gamut of energy demands. Taken together we are seeing a widening of the access gap, which is a major challenge to and stalling development goals.
Rather than these binaries, there has got to be a better, more cost effective, more productive, and more efficient way to deliver energy access in regions like sub-Saharan Africa, if we are to truly It’s not a matter of DRE vs grid, we need both if we are to achieve universal access.
While at Power for All, my colleagues and I thought about this paradox for some time, developed a hypothesis and tested it. Finally, we have not just our hypothesis, but the published results – live, tried, and tested – to help us chart a path forward. After five years of conceptualization, navigating implementation with incredible partners and the support of the Uganda Ministry of Energy and ERA, we are extremely proud to present the peer reviewed results of our Utilities of the Future project!
Our newest publication presents findings from a five-year implementation study (2018–2023) conducted in Mukono District, Uganda, analyzing the benefits and challenges ofa collaboration between athe national utility, and a hostconsortium of decentralized renewable energy (DRE) providers that include mini-grids companies, appliance companies, and financiers..
The results are astounding! We find that when these different stakeholders collaborate, rather than compete, better results are achieved. , with the Integrated Energy ModelIn Kiwumu, an integrated, collaborative, and innovative approach to delivering new connections in a previously unelectrified community precipitated the following results:
⚡ 3.5x faster electrification
💰 64% lower connection costs
📈 3,000% demand growth, driven by productive-use financing for mills, refrigeration, and irrigation.
💡 52% lower cost-to-serve for the utility for grid-edge customers
This is proof, not promise. After five years of implementation, it’s clear: when utilities and decentralized energy service providers and DRE innovators join forces, they can unlock solutions to some of the energy sector’s toughest constraints!
While I conceptualized and led this research when at Power for All, there are many other fantastic partners to thank. Sumaya Mahomed, the current Director of Utilities Innovation, led the facilitation, supported the research analysis, field work and, the business modelling with support from Isaac Mufumbiro and Alexander Komakech and crafted the integrated energy policy framework an effort that paved the way for interconnection. Dr Carolina Ines Pan led the research methodology, framework and research team that provided the findings and insights.
This project stands as a collective achievement, so as an author I want to also gratefully acknowledge the invaluable contributions of all partners (Equatorial Power, Energrow, East African Power, Umeme, Makerere University,CLASP, Crossboundary, Duke University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, RMI, Next Grid, Zola Electric) and in particular the government stakeholders( MEMD and ERA), whose openness and support made it possible to test and validate this novel approach.
We’re excited to advance this work across new markets and support utilities, energy companies, and policymakers to collaborate and scale these models. Join us in advancing what integrated energy systems can deliver.
Link to full paper: Integrated energy in action: Practical learnings from integrating centralized and decentralized energy delivery models in Uganda – ScienceDirect