CH. 01
Impact Report 2024/ Impact Report 2024/

Delivering Results:
Reliable Power

Report
Published Date June 09, 2025

Power Overview

Abundant energy is the key to well-being, yet billions still live with too little, or none at all. Without power, communities face steep barriers to health, education, jobs, and opportunity.

In 2024, The Rockefeller Foundation’s Power team helped reach 1.7 million people and businesses with new or improved energy access through its Big Bet, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).

In this chapter, we explore how partnerships can accelerate progress toward universal energy access through data, innovation, and locally-led delivery. Case studies include GEAPP’s pivotal collaboration with Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy to bring productive uses of clean energy to remote Amazon communities, replacing diesel, supporting livelihoods, and advancing forest conservation.

We also share highlights from the Foundation’s broader energy portfolio, including how countries like Kenya and Uganda are using data to inform national planning, and how targeted support is helping shape energy policy across Africa and Asia.

 

Read the full chapter to explore how partnership, technology, and community leadership are reshaping the future of power for the 3.8 billion people living in energy poverty.
Deep Dive:

India Powers Up

Education, women’s empowerment and job creation — just a few of the ways that access to energy is improving lives and livelihoods for people in India. In Rajasthan, for example, thanks to the work of our partner GEAPP, over 200 solar sites have been installed impacting 177,000 farmers and creating almost 200,000 jobs. Find out more about how the power of these partnerships is increasing sustainability and bridging divides.

In the last few years, India achieved a major milestone: reaching 100 percent of its households and villages with electricity. Now the Indian government has set a new goal: to deploy 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 and to support that ambition, GEAPP is working in communities where expanding renewable power will most improve lives and livelihoods.

Left to right: Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation, and Saurabh Kumar, Vice President of GEAPP, discuss the unique features of the plant during a visit on January 6, 2025.

In the Indian state of Rajasthan, where the expanded grid has given rural farmers the tools needed to power irrigation pumps, mills, and other equipment, the power supply was not always reliable sometimes forcing people to choose between sleep and work. One of the solutions is new solar installations, with the dual benefits of providing farmers with consistent, reliable power while also advancing the country’s transition goals.

To help accelerate that progress GEAPP facilitated conversations between stakeholders to better understand their needs, concerns, and barriers to success. Then, working with state officials, they developed a tool for monitoring installations to make them more efficient and, importantly, scalable. The new digital product tracks the life cycle of solar plants, ensuring timely interventions, overseeing resources, managing automated payments, and allocating jobs for local communities. The result is as much solarization progress in 10 months as in the previous 7 years.

Rajasthan’s farmers are growing more crops than ever before, and the new solar installations have rippled further, reaching 667,000 homes and creating 189,000 new jobs. GEAPP was able to leverage that impact from a modest $400,000 investment. Lessons learned in in India will inform work there and beyond.

Download the reliable power chapter
Help us spread the word

Highlight the text below to share this story and help spotlight the amazing work of visionary grantees driving real change. Your voice helps their impact go even further.

grantee spotlight story
Stories from the field: Haiti

Mesh grids help illuminate communities in Haiti.

Access to affordable power empowers communities, improves earning potential, and perhaps most importantly, can provide some of life’s most simple pleasures — evening conversations with neighbours under porch lights.

That’s exactly what we’ve achieved in Haiti, thanks to The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), who supported energy company Alina Enèji to connect Haitians to electricity using innovative ‘mesh-grids’.

Since 2021, this simple and affordable solution has grown from 35 houses to more than 3,000. Working with the people it serves, 98% staff are locals and results have shown that 27% of users have launched or improved income-generating activity, while also facilitating these important community connections.

read the grantee impact story

Alina Enèjii is using solar-powered mesh grids to reach remote areas and bring transformational change to communities usually left behind. (Photo Courtesy of Alina Enèji)

Our Big Bet on Energy:

Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP)

 

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) provides grant funding, a range of financing options, and technical assistance and serves as a platform for collaborative action across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

learn about our work with GEAPP

Transformational Numbers

 

Power Results

We’re proud to partner with GEAPP, whose work and impact highlight how far we’ve come together.

  • 1.7million

    people and businesses with new or improved energy access

  • 946,993jobs

    and livelihoods supported

  • 326,554cumulative

    tons of CO2 averted or reduced

On Reflection

What We Are Learning From Our Power Work

Agreement isn’t essential, embracing candor and conflict is.

In our partnership with GEAPP, we’ve learned that as a donor, our job is to create an inclusive environment for discussions rather than taking a side or committing to a point of view. To keep partnerships healthy, we need to be willing to acknowledge where there is misalignment, uncertainty or disagreement and confront it together. This lesson is even more crucial today as GEAPP continues to expand its donor base. We must recognize that we are one of many perspectives that our grantee must balance and we should prioritize making differing perspectives and priorities discussable, visible and workable to support GEAPP in reaching their goals. 

As the gap widens between data owners and data users, longer, stronger bridges are needed to unlock data for social good.

In 2024, the Power team commissioned an in-depth evaluation on their partnership with Electricity Growth and Use in Developing Economies, or the e-GUIDE Initiative.

The success of e-GUIDE reinforces the critical role of accurate and granular data in planning and mapping energy systems. However, data alone is not a cure all. Energy sector institutions need essential data infrastructure and skills to carry this work forward in-house long-term. To support the use of data to accelerate energy access, we must also prioritize supporting an enabling environment for its use and uptake.

Nirmal Das Swami, owner of Sawarda Solar Farm, observes a robotic solar panel cleaner. Badwali Dhani, Rajasthan, India. (Photo Courtesy of GEAPP)

Download the Reliable Power chapter or our full impact report now.

Download the Reliable Power chapter

download the full 2024 Impact Report

Jump to Other Chapters

    CH.02
    Food Results
    Good Food

    Too often, food in the United States and around the world contributes to poor health for both people and the planet. This needs to change.

    CH.03
    Opportunity Results
    The American Dream

    Even though the United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, for some the opportunity for a better future feels further away than ever. We are working to change that.

    CH.04
    Finance Results
    Catalytic Finance

    The world has no shortage of solutions to improve human well-being, but it lacks sufficient financing to scale them. We’re taking steps to improve that.

    CH.05
    Health Results
    Resilient Health

    Around the world, people are facing mounting and increasingly complex threats to their health. These crises call for new partnerships that can build a resilient approach to today’s health threats.

    CH.OV
    Overview
    Impact Report 2024

    Delivering results for people in the United States and around the world has not been easy. Across energy, food, health, finance, and economic opportunity, the Foundation uses its convening power to show that collaboration is the fastest route to impact.

Back to Top