Power / Data and Technology

Data and Technology

Current Initiative

Overview

Despite the tremendous cost reductions witnessed across energy technologies, developing countries and vulnerable communities are being left behind. The traditional approach to scaling mature technologies in developing markets only once we are at the bottom of the cost curve will not achieve our energy access and transition objectives in the timescale necessary. Frontier or high-impact (but early-stage) technologies across the energy value chain could change this equation. However, without deliberate efforts to focus research, application, and product development in LMICs, the impacts of new technologies on the communities that could most benefit from them will be left unrealized.

The Rockefeller Foundation is developing and scaling innovative solutions to significantly reduce costs for energy systems in emerging markets. We partner with leading global researchers, universities, ventures, and investors to link cutting-edge products to decision-makers.

Why it Matters

  •  
    $0%%

    reduction in the price of critical renewable technologies has occurred globally over the last decade, but developers in Sub-Saharan Africa still face costs that are nearly 2-5 times higher

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    could be saved over the next decade by deploying solar minigrids instead of extending the grid in low- and medium-income countries, the World Bank estimates

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    of global energy investment is currently directed to Africa, despite the region accounting for one-fifth of the global population

Featured Content

  • The e-GUIDE “Electricity demand estimation and viability analysis for off-grid villages in Kenya” set out to test innovative data analytical tools to estimate and validate predictions of energy demand in off-grid areas.
  • To unlock affordable, reliable power and turn on a green and equitable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we must make distributed energy a core part of integrated electricity systems.
  • This e-GUIDE Initiative seeks to transform the approaches used for planning and operations of electricity infrastructure in developing regions.