Mind the GAP: Bridging Strategies for Universal Energy Access

Over 1 billion people face energy poverty around the world, without access to modern, reliable, and affordable energy. The slow pace and high cost and environmental impacts of energy poverty alleviation is in part the result of relying on century-old planning, financing, and institutional paradigms to design and operate energy systems in low-income countries. My research aims to identify and frame the problems with electricity access in these regions and offer technical and institutional solutions that could be implemented by policy-makers. In this talk, I will present the Grid Access and Planning (GAP) model that I developed to propose new strategies to provide reliable and affordable electricity for underserved populations, with a case study of Kenya. I will wrap up by offering insights on a new institutional arrangement - the Utility of the Future - that aims to remove barriers, create incentives, and support the implementation of these new strategies.

Speaker: Juan Pablo Carvallo, UC Berkeley