Lesson 3.1: Key concepts in access to energy

16 September 2024

Lesson objectives

Access to energy

Access to energy is the availability of sustainable, clean, reliable and modern energy services to meet basic human needs at affordable costs. Although the definition of basic human needs may vary from one city to another, the attributes common to all cities are security, affordability, reliability and sustainability of energy supply.

Energy poverty

Energy poverty is the lack of access to affordable, safe and sustainable energy and ‘’a direct expression of deprivation in a city’s every-day life with both context and impact experienced by individuals, households, and communities’’ (GCoM Urban Energy Access Toolkit for Local Governments). Sub-Saharan Africa, despite being critical in energy value chains outside the continent, has high levels of energy poverty, made worse by the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Access to electricity

Access to electricity refers to the percentage of people in a given area that have relatively simple, stable access to electricity (IEA). The electricity access can be on the grid, meaning that the electricity is supplied through a centralised network connecting the consumers (homes, businesses, or industries) to sources of electricity generation (power plants, wind farms etc.), or off-grid, meaning that the generation and use of electricity is independent from a centralised power grid. In off-grid access, the electricity is produced locally, typically using small-scale renewable energy sources or other generation methods, and consumed directly at the point of generation without relying on the infrastructure of a large utility network.

Access to clean cooking

Access to clean cooking means the access and primary use of modern fuels and technologies, including natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), electricity and biogas, or improved biomass cookstoves, as opposed to the basic biomass cookstoves and three-stone fires (JRC Guidebook).

Energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is the useful energy or energy services obtained from a system, conversion process, transmission or storage activity to the input of energy (measured as kWh kWh-1, tonnes kWh-1 or any other physical measure of useful output like tonne-km transported). Most commonly, energy efficiency is measured as input energy over a physical or economic unit. For buildings, it is often measured as kWh/m2, and for vehicles as km/litre-1 or litre/km. Very often in policy, ‘energy efficiency’ is intended to mean the measures to reduce energy demand through technological options such as insulating buildings, using more efficient appliances, efficient lighting, efficient vehicles, etc.

Energy security

Energy security is the goal of a given country, or the global community as a whole, to maintain an adequate, stable and predictable energy supply. Measures encompass: Safeguarding the sufficiency of energy resources to meet national energy demand at competitive and stable prices and the resilience of the energy supply Enabling development and deployment of technologies Building sufficient infrastructure to generate, store and transmit energy supplies Ensuring enforceable contracts of delivery

Clean energy

Clean energy refers to an energy source or technology that produces minimal or no emissions and pollutants when generating energy. While renewable energy sources are often considered clean, not all clean energy sources are necessarily renewable.

Renewable energy

Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed. It includes ‘’all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner, including: bioenergy; geothermal energy; hydropower; ocean energy, including inter alia tidal, wave and ocean thermal energy; solar energy; and wind energy’’ (Statute of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), 2009). Biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources can also be considered as renewable energy.

Sustainable energy

Sustainable energy is energy generated from renewable and non-pollutive resources. It refers not only to energy sources, but also technologies and practices that meet present energy needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It includes practices such as energy efficiency and conservation, and aims at balancing environmental, social, and economic concerns to ensure access and resilience over the long term.

Energy affordability

Energy affordability means that an individual should be capable of accessing and covering the energy expenses for the household — for cooling, lighting, heating, and powering appliances - while also paying for other basic living expenses, without undue financial burden.

Measuring access to energy

The World Bank’s Multi-Tier Framework goes beyond a binary definition of ‘access vs no access’ to present a means of measuring energy access that considers seven attributes for electricity access and six attributes for clean cooking access. Each household’s situation is represented across Tiers 1 to 5.

CoM SSA Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plan (SEACAP) course

Participants 1632