Smart Villages today announces finalists in the second annual Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge. Building on last year’s success, this year’s competition challenged aspiring young East African entrepreneurs to come up with an idea for a social business powered by off-grid energy. Social businesses are financially sustainable and also deliver positive social impacts to the …
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), energy, and agriculture are topics of great importance to every rural community. In Southeast Asia, these issues overlap in many remote villages where lack of access to energy is often coupled with lack of access to clean drinking water or water for sanitation or agriculture. This report summarises the information …
No one left behind: Will energy access alone end poverty? A European Development Days debate with rural leaders, the private sector, and scientists On 15 June 2016, an interactive debate, “Will energy access alone end poverty?: A debate with rural leaders, the private sector and scientists” will be held during European Development Days at Tour …
No one left behind: Will energy access alone end poverty? Read More »
A workshop on Smart Villages and Resilience to Natural Disasters was co-hosted by the Smart Villages Initiative and the Asia Research Institute, the National University of Singapore in Singapore on 5 May 2016. The workshop brought together 44 participants from two communities of researchers: those focusing on energy access; and those focusing on natural disasters. …
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Simon Bransfield-Garth, Chief Executive Officer Azuri Technologies Location: Pan-Africa “Go where nobody else has got to yet.” Simon Bransfield-Garth is on the cutting edge of the solar pay-as-you-go market for rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Founder of Azuri Technologies, Bransfield-Garth is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for technology. He has been named a World …
Azuri’s CEO anticipates continued growth in Africa, PAYG agriculture Read More »
In spite of much technological progress, many countries as well as communities within countries suffer from food insecurity; one in seven people in the developing world remains food insecure. Food security involves concurrent attention to availability, which is a function of production; access, which is a function of purchasing power; and absorption, which is a …
Energy provision and food security in off-grid villages Read More »
In 2007, I was invited by a colleague to teach a global technology course to Princeton students at the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. This is a wildlife research centre located in the Laikipia district of Kenya, which has a population of about 250,000 people in a land area about twice the size of Israel. …
2015 was an extraordinary year for renewable energy. Renewables are now cost competitive with fossil fuels in many markets and are established around the world as mainstream sources of energy. Cities, communities and companies are leading the rapidly expanding “100% renewable” movement, playing a vital role in advancing the global energy transition. Distributed renewable energy …
On average, 60% of the population across the 15 countries that comprise the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) is based in rural areas. Rural electrification rates in the region remain extremely low and estimates suggest that, for the region as a whole, only 19% of the rural population has access to electricity. Traditional …
The University of Edinburgh together with the Smart Villages Initiative held a workshop at the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation on 11 May 2016. The workshop brought together social and physical scientists, industry representatives and entrepreneurs, energy and international development policy makers, and practitioners. The workshop provided an overview of new insights and research in battery …
WR19: Frontier energy storage technologies and global energy challenges Read More »
There is substantial potential across West Africa to develop renewable energy resources for electricity generation. Despite the potential, a substantial portion of the population across the region remains without access to electricity. For cooking, a large majority of the population remains dependent on using biomass as the basic fuel in rudimentary cook stoves to meet …
BR16: Findings from the Smart Villages West Africa regional workshop Read More »
Primary data from 163 households was analyzed using a novel asset- and income-based index. We found statistically significant differences between households of different socio-economic status for a variety of indicators. Microeconometric techniques revealed the determinants of willingness-to-pay for electricity. We used primary data collected from 163 households in an off-grid Rwandan village to provide insights …
Electricity first made its appearance in the region in 1894, when two prominent local Selangor-based Malayan entrepreneurs, Loke Yew and Thamboosamy Pillay, started to use electric pumps for tin mining. By the mid-1920s, several small generating plants had been established using a variety of fuels including low-grade coal, local wood, charcoal and bunker oil. A …
[:en] A debate with rural leaders, the private sector and scientists 1.3 billion people currently do not have access to electricity and 3 billion people are without clean cooking facilities: these are the people who have been left behind. Many are women and young people. Global initiatives such as SE4ALL are crucial, but there remains …
Summary Much is said about moving to a biobased economy (BBE) for the production of food, feed, fuels, materials and products1 particularly in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals and delivering on the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, published in 2016 and 2015, respectively. The question considered here is whether the better provision of biomass …
Is biomass a sustainable energy solution for off-grid villages in developing countries? Read More »
Smart Villages organized a workshop on the use of renewable energies for the electrification of rural communities in Bolivia, which was held on April 28, 2016 in La Paz, Bolivia. The workshop aimed to outline new prospects for reducing rural poverty through access and use of sustainable energy sources. The workshop was set to facilitate …
This report summarises the findings of a workshop on Smart Villages and Resilience to Natural Disasters. Co-hosted by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and the Smart Villages Initiative, the workshop brought together two communities of researchers and practitioners focusing on energy access and natural disasters to promote active discussion around key issues …
WR18: Smart Villages and resilience to natural disasters Read More »
2.5 million people in Bolivia live without a clean and sustainable energy source, and rely on diesel, kerosene, and candles for lighting. Many of them live in remote rural communities. The Political Constitution of Bolivia establishes that access to electricity is a citizen’s right, and the country aims to be fully electrified by 2025. To …
In smart villages, energy access together with other key components of infrastructure can accelerate the development of education and healthcare services, provision of clean water and sanitation, availability of nutritious food, and the establishment of productive enterprises. Underpinned by technological advances, such developments provide substantial improvements in well-being and life opportunities, and a choice between …
BR13: Smart Villages and resilience to natural disasters Read More »