Smart Villages

Off-grid village energy workshop in Nepal highlights key role of mini-hydro schemes

Press Releases /

Smart Villages and Practical Action Consulting off-grid village energy workshop in Nepal highlights key role of mini-hydro schemes In the latest of a series of workshops across the SE Asia region, the Smart Villages Initiative and Practical Action Consulting brought together a diverse cross-section of participants in the Nepali off-grid energy sector. The Smart Villages …

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Kathmandu Smart Villages Workshop

Workshops /

The aim of the Smart Villages Kathmandu workshop will be to learn lessons from the Nepalese experience in off-grid energy provision to rural communities that will be of interest, and potential relevance, to other countries in the South Asia region. The workshop will focus on the conditions necessary to ensure development benefits flow from energy access …

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The business case for off-grid energy in India

External content, Resources /

Approximately 360 million people in India lack adequate access to grid-electricity and another 20 million households receive less than four hours of electricity per day. To help close this gap, the Government of India has set a target of generating 100 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2022. But while grid connectivity is expected to improve …

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Energy Innovation Challenge

Press Releases /

The Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge, launching today, challenges young East African entrepreneurs to form teams and come up with imaginative ways of distributing or implementing novel or existing energy technologies for off-grid villages. Each team should include one engineer or scientist. The teams with the best entries will win a spot in the Cambridge …

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Accelerating off-grid renewable energy (IOREC 2014: Key Findings and Recommendations)

External content, Resources /

Universal electricity access – one of the targets of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative for 2030 – will remain unachievable unless countries adopt a market-based approach to off-grid renewable energy deployment. This report highlights key findings and recommendations of the Second International Off-grid Renewable Energy Conference (IOREC 2014), organised by the International Renewable …

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East Africa Energy Innovation Challenge 2015

Competitions /

The first annual East African Energy Innovation Challenge was an entrepreneurial training course and competition that took place in summer 2015.  Over 225 East African applicants across nine countries applied to the programme by pitching their ideas for providing energy services to off-grid villages. The entrepreneurs identified a number of issues and opportunities in the …

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TR2: Electricity for off-grid villages – an overview

Technical Reports /

This ‘State of Play’ ‘technical report provides a review of the literature relating to the issues around provision of electricity to off-grid villages in 2015. It summarises key challenges associated with the provision of electricity to off-grid villages, and views set out in the literature on the opportunities and required framework conditions to address those …

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BR2: The role of innovation competitions for off-grid energy in Africa

Policy Briefs /

Innovation competitions for new technologies and business models are one tool used by policy makers in a range of contexts and countries to help businesses in new fields overcome practical barriers blocking progress between successful pilots and commercialisation. This brief note discusses competitions relevant to African off-grid energy and how they could be designed and …

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WR4: Kuching Workshop Report on Smart Villages in Southeast Asia

Workshop Reports /

Summary This report summarises the information presented at, and conclusions arising from, the second major international workshop of the Smart Villages Initiative. The workshop took place in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak, Malaysia, on the campus of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), and marked the beginning of a 12-month programme of engagement by the Smart …

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ASEAN Infographic

Infographic, Resources /

This infographic summarises the  requirement for and the challenges to energy access across the ASEAN region (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore , Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam). The ASEAN region is now the engine of the global economy. Its spectacular growth over the past two decades has lifted hundreds of millions of people out …

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Sexual Violence against Women and Girls: Is Energy part of the Solution?

Blog /

“It was a degrading life full of humiliation and shame. We were often victims of rape and beatings by the hoodlums who hid themselves in the forest”  ̶  (An Ethiopian fuel wood carrier, Panjwani, 2005). Energy provision and sexual violence appear to be distant problems. However, with the possible exception of rural energy supplies in …

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A long climb to energy access: an off-grid success story

Blog /

Claudia Canales, a Smart Village Project leader describes her visit to the remote community of  Amaguaya, recently in receipt of energy from a newly constructed micro-hydro plant. The visit was in preparation for a Workshop to be held in the Bolivia later this year – ed. I was fortunate to arrive in Bolivia a few days earlier than the rest of …

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Informality and market governance in wood and charcoal value chains

External content, Resources /

Two billion people rely on wood and charcoal for their daily energy needs. But supply chains are often environmentally unsustainable, and poor actors rarely capture enough value from trade in these products. This briefing discusses two innovative cases in the governance of biomass markets, which enhance the inclusion of informal actors. The first shows how …

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BR1: Findings from the Arusha Smart Villages workshop

Policy Briefs /

This note provides a summary of the workshop’s findings and recommendations for policy makers. A more detailed report of the workshop, together with copies of the presentations made at the workshop can be found here. Key points 1.3 billion people worldwide have no access to electricity. 3 billion people are still cooking with dangerous and inefficient stoves. Policy …

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Southeast Asia Regional Workshop – Kuching, Malaysia

Workshops /

This opening workshop of our engagement in Southeast Asia, organised with the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), was held to gather input and stimulate discussion from stakeholders involved in off-grid projects in ASEAN countries. Participants included renewable energy experts, technology providers, funders, community projects leaders, corporations/ private sectors, policy makers, …

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Exploring energy priorities: a community workshop tool

External content, Resources /

In order to design effective, participatory and sustainable energy access interventions that are in sync with real community priorities, it is necessary to understand and capture nuances of community energy needs and preferences across the target population. In South Africa, the CHOICES community energy project organised ‘energy options’ workshops to discuss and prioritise local energy …

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