Building Climate-Resilient Grids in Data-Scarce Context:

As climate risks intensify and urban populations grow, strengthening the resilience of electricity distribution networks in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly urgent. This talk presents insights from collaborative efforts to develop data-driven tools for monitoring and improving grid performance in Accra, Ghana. Drawing on a first-of-its-kind, high-resolution dataset on distribution-level outages and voltage quality in the region, we introduce novel methods for mapping grid topology and estimating technical losses using edge voltage measurements. We also examine how extreme weather events - such as heat waves and heavy rainfall - intensify power disruptions, disproportionately affecting climate-vulnerable communities. By leveraging low-cost grid sensing, open-source tools, data analytics, and stakeholder engagement, this work offers actionable insights to guide equitable and climate-resilient grid planning in low-resource settings.

June Lukuyu is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington.