Eight Priorities to Achieve Reliable Energy Access for Everyone

As the concern for fair energy access grew, universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services by 2030 (SDG 7.1) is a prerequisite and a catalyst for improving the living and working conditions of all the world's people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable populations who lack any modern energy services. Universal access to energy is integral to the transition to an inclusive, just, sustainable, secure, and net-zero-emissions energy system in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. Universal access will sustain the transition and will, in turn, be sustained by it.

However, we will not achieve SDG 7.1 if today's slow pace of electrification and clean cooking deployment continues. Nations must significantly accelerate the pace by shifting a system-level paradigm that embraces more significant commitment and innovation and challenges the habitual ways energy-access policy and investments are directed.

Significantly increasing the pace of electrification and clean cooking expansion efforts is an urgent matter. The electricity access rate in access-deficit countries must increase from 82% in 2019 to 94% by 2025 to achieve 100% access by 2030. So these countries need a yearly gain of two percentage points, or electrification being brought to about 150 million people between now and 2025 or a 33% increase: an extra 0.5 percentage points or additional 40 million people per year over the current rate of progress. The clean cooking access rate in access-deficit countries must increase from 66% in 2019 to 82% by 2025 to achieve 100% by 2030, meaning a yearly gain of 3.0 percentage points or about 230 million people, which equals with a 66% increase, an extra 1.2 percentage points, or an additional 90 million people per year over the current rate of progress. The paradigm shift is the core of the United Nation's new report: Energy Access 2021.

1. Align energy policy and investment with energy transition pathways that accomplish universal access to electricity and clean cooking by 2030

Achieving universal access to sustainable, reliable, affordable, and modern energy must also be an integral part of the just energy transition and be embedded in countries' climate commitments and their strategies and actions for net-zero-energy systems. Countries should find ways of reorienting fossil fuel and other inefficient subsidies that encourage wasteful energy consumption into smart subsidies for clean energy access, particularly towards poor and vulnerable households and community health and education facilities.

2. Prioritize and coordinate political commitments and financing to accelerate access to clean cooking, building synergies with electrification efforts

National governments should integrate cooking energy demand into energy planning and strategy development. A transition to universal access to clean cooking will not be a quick fix but will build on least-cost, best-fit approaches that reflect local people’s needs, health risks, abilities to pay for services, and local market conditions; this transition should also take into account food security, gender, climate, and safety considerations. The unprecedented financial and analytical resources must be mobilized to build the enabling ecosystem. In the same vein, decentralized energy solutions and access to life-changing appliances should be included in energy planning and strategy development.

3. Position universal access to energy as a key enabler and driver of inclusive, sustainable, and resilient economic recovery and growth and as an integral part of the transition to a just net-zero-emissions energy system

Nations must fully integrate energy-access planning with broader development priorities to achieve unprecedented synergies and opportunities concerning all the other Sustainable Development Goals as part of a broad-based political commitment and shift in fundamental assumptions related to energy access. Development partners should prioritize support for the least-developed countries (LDCs) and countries suffering fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV).

4. Put people at the centre of efforts to deliver universal energy

Both clean cooking and electricity access initiatives must be designed based on (a variety of) human needs, user practices and preferences, and consumer affordability levels, considering diverse cultural (national and local) and socio-economic contexts. Communities should be seen not only as beneficiaries but also as co-creators of future energy systems. People-centered energy access approaches will need to include a social safety net to deliver modern energy services to people who cannot afford the total cost of access to clean cooking and electricity.

5. The 'last mile' of energy access must become the 'first mile' to be tackled

Accelerating energy access cannot be achieved without significantly increasing rates of access to electricity and clean cooking among the remote, poorest, and most vulnerable population segments, including displacement-affected communities. Creative, context-sensitive solutions are needed to unleash sustainable energy access expansion efforts that are genuinely inclusive and meet the specific needs and situations of vulnerable populations and support their capacity to overcome energy poverty and their prospects of making progress in doing so. As the gap in finance needed to provide energy access in the LDCs is vast, there is an urgent need for increasing funding for energy access and delivering on climate finance pledges allocated to LDCs, which can have a direct impact on accelerating poverty eradication and as a critical enabler for sustainable development. Support enterprises with innovative, cost-effective, and scalable energy- access business models so that delivery of clean cooking and electricity solutions can be accelerated to households, businesses, and community facilities

6. Support enterprises with innovative, cost-effective, and scalable energy- access business models so that delivery of clean cooking and electricity solutions can be accelerated to households, businesses, and community facilities

Unlocking the potential of enterprises with innovative and pioneering mechanisms and supporting them to reach homes and businesses on the 'last mile' will enable scaling up. Thanks to its ability to innovate, the private sector can play a crucial role in driving energy access, and this is particularly so for poor and rural communities. The private sector can help create new public-private partnerships to address affordability constraints and the high costs of reaching rural customers in the most efficient ways.

7. Accelerate the advancement of knowledge exchange, capacity-building, partnership-building, and innovation

Human capital will be essential to drive universal access to energy. Governments, development partners, and service providers should support local academic and training institutions by investing in capacity- and skills-building for all levels of participants in sustainable energy access–expansion efforts. These will include policymakers and technicians, the promotion of local entrepreneurship, and the particular targeting of women and youth. Such investments in human development should, in turn, drive further innovation in technology, business models, financing, policy, and market enablers to accelerate the pace of energy-access expansion.

8. Improve the availability and quality of open-source, verifiable energy information and data pertinent to national, subnational, and local contexts

Both end-user and supply-side data are necessary for understanding consumers' needs—namely, what interventions will likely be effective in accelerating access—and tracking progress correspondingly. 

Governments should improve household surveys to provide more nuanced data on energy access that will also enable more accurate insights into the most critical aspects of energy access, such as reliability, quality, affordability, and convenience, as well as more significant insights into electricity use and cooking practices, including fuel/stove stacking for clean cooking.

Accelerating our progress towards universal energy access is required to reach our goal in 2030 and solve other problems in the process, such as (but not limited to) socio-economic, gender equality, poverty, and sustainable development. Concrete and actionable projects should be done rapidly following these eight recommendations. Among many, the ACCESS project is one of UNDP projects to increase electrification and energy access towards poor and vulnerable households with access to electricity or limited electricity. Using off-grid and decentralized solar panels as the primary source of electricity and building local workforce and enterprise, ACCESS aims to provide the power plant with facility sustainability and increased human capability in technological and socio-economics.

Learn more about Theme Report: Energy Access 2021 at: https://www.un.org/en/hlde-2021/page/theme-reports

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Author: Adream Bais Junior, Communication ACCESS Project