It won’t be enough for wealthy countries to usher in their own energy transitions if energy-poor countries develop their economies through fossil fuels. The world needs to close the Green Power Gap. Doing so will require mobilizing financial, technical, and technological resources to the markets where they are needed most. But more than that, it will require an understanding that unless everyone has the green power they need, no one can escape climate change’s worst.
Green Leapfrogging
Getting there will not be easy. While an energy transition has already taken hold in many advanced and emerging markets, the energy-poor cohort that is most in need of investment and clean power deployment are being left behind.
The good news is that this group has incredible solar availability in terms of resource quality and seasonality—far superior to the resource quality in most advanced and emerging countries. They are also often endowed with complementary renewable energy resources such as wind, hydro, and geothermal, creating the potential for diverse, flexible power systems.
Taking advantage of this potential presents a “green window of opportunity.” These countries can break free from the costly and inefficient trajectories of power system development in advanced economies and “leapfrog” onto nimbler power pathways enabled by modern technology. But they will need partnerships and investment to do so.
Green Power Pathways
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to a future of clean energy abundance. In our report, we have provisionally identified four possible pathways based on existing power system assets and the availability of renewable energy resources in these countries. These are:
- Gradual Grid Greening
This pathway is appropriate in countries with developed grids and considerable centralized fossil fuel generation assets. The pressing question is how to ensure that grid power is delivered more cleanly and sustainably. That’s the question many advanced economies are currently solving for as they deploy growing amounts of renewable capacity. This approach requires integrating widespread deployment of clean generation and battery storage technologies within the grid while phasing out fossil fuel-based generation.
Since it relies on existing grid infrastructure, this approach does not necessitate leapfrogging to entirely new energy systems. Still, it provides ample opportunity for technological leapfrogging—in other words, the early deployment of newer clean technologies (such as green hydrogen) as they become commercial
One prime candidate for this pathway is India, which already has an extensive grid system that reaches 99.2% of residents, but three-quarters of its power generation comes from coal. Putting India on a pathway to a clean, high-growth future will require widespread deployment of clean generation and storage technologies integrated with their grid, alongside a gradual phaseout of coal.
- Mixed Grid Renewable Evolution
This pathway is appropriate in countries with limited grid and generation capacity but higher population density. It involves building out a power system centered around renewable generation and storage solutions, bypassing heavy investment in fossil-fuelfired power plants and avoiding significant lock-in of CO2 emissions.
In densely populated countries with limited grid coverage, where the grid serves major cities but not all rural areas, centralized electrification may still be the most cost-effective way to provide access to most residents in the long term. In the short term, decentralized systems such as mini-grids can provide immediate energy access for rural areas until the grid reaches them.
One candidate for this approach would be Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Since Nigeria’s grid and generation assets remain limited, the country has the potential to build a renewablescentric power system even faster than advanced economies. In the short term, the quickest way to provide electricity access to thousands of villages will be by deploying mini-grids. Indeed, the average construction time of renewable energy and battery storage systems is less than half that of fossil alternatives. In the medium term, there may be a growing incentive to interconnect these mini-grids and absorb them into the national grid as local power demand grows, and there is potential to tap into a diversity of renewable energy resources.
- Decentralized Solar Storage
This pathway is appropriate in countries with limited grid development but excellent solar resources and limited other renewable options. In these cases, extending the grid is a huge bottleneck to achieving universal electricity access. Fortunately, distributed renewable technologies, including smaller-scale battery storage, offer an alternative, lower-cost pathway. The heavy deployment of decentralized PV tech combined with battery storage can harness that potential and meet much of those countries’ energy needs.
One example is Burkina Faso, where solar is the only meaningful indigenous renewable resource. Fortunately, its solar potential is staggering and thanks to the declining cost of PV systems and batteries, it can follow a solar-paved pathway to energy prosperity. Generation through solarpowered mini-grids, metro-grids, and standalone solutions could directly serve much of the population and avoid the need for costly and slow grid extensions.
- Decentralized Renewable Mix
This pathway is also suitable for countries with limited grid and generation assets but favors those where a diversity of high-quality renewable resources exists. It relies heavily on decentralized systems, but, in this case, they are powered by various renewable energy sources, such as solar, hydro, wind, and geothermal. Blending those systems based on individual countries’ resource endowments allows for flexible systems to emerge to meet energy demand cost-effectively and resiliently.
One such example is The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where grids exist around some major population centers, but 80% of the country’s population is still unelectrified. A sizeable share of the 76 million people without energy access will be best and most quickly served by decentralized power systems. The country has abundant hydro resources, which already account for 97% of grid-connected generation.xiv New decentralized systems could be focused on a blend of solar and small hydro.
Bottomline
Each pathway and “archetype” country—India, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and the DRC—account for differences in incumbent power sector assets, grid development, natural resources, etc. As we dig deeper into what solutions are feasible with existing technologies and what might come with foreseeable frontier technologies, we plan to flesh out these and other country-specific case studies in the coming months.
Excerpt of: The Green Power Gap: Achieving an Energy Abundant Future for Everyone (The Rockefeller Foundation 2024)