Electricity to the nearly 1 billion people still lacking it
KTH has developed probably the most used electrification tool in the world – a decision support when providing rural and urban areas with electricity. A platform enables anyone working with energy access, to engage with governments and other stakeholders to discuss strategies to increase electrification rates in ~60 countries.
The tool called Open Source Spatial Electrification Tool (OnSSET) facilitates the comparison of electrification options for electricity access, such as on and off grid, and powered by renewable and fossil fuels. The tool explores electrification investment scenarios to facilitate data-driven decisions to scale up electrification efforts.
Policy impact around the world
The tool has resulted in a number of high-level policy impacts around the world, including:
- Direct impact in countries: Several, direct in-country applications in e.g. Benin, Madagascar, Afghanistan and others.
- Being at the basis of the World Bank´s Global Electrification Platform (GEP) . The OnSSET tool was used to generate 216 electrification investment scenarios per country for ~60 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and Asia and the Pacific.
- Being at the basis of the UNDESA Modelling tools for universal access to electricity .
- In total, more than 100 participants from ~30 countries have attended KTH-led OnSSET trainings, mainly coming from energy ministries and national power utilities but also from universities and development organizations. In 2018 (http://indico.ictp.it/event/8315/ ) and 2019 (http://indico.ictp.it/event/8751/ ), KTH staff attended as trainers on the Summer School on Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development in Trieste and the Energy Modelling Platform for Africa which was held in Ethiopia in 2018 (http://www.energymodellingplatform.org/emp-a-2018.html ) and in South Africa in 2019 (http://www.energymodellingplatform.org/emp-a-2019.html ). These capacity building events are part of an ongoing effort by development organizations (and KTH) to build local electrification modelling capacity, which enables long-term sustainability in electrification planning and makes planning more affordable as dependence on international consultants is reduced.
- Being featured in the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlooks 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019. (The WEO is the IEA’s flagship publication and has a global reach)
Since 2014, KTH has led the development of the Open Source Spatial Electrification Tool (OnSSET). The tool was first developed in collaboration with the International Energy Agency and UNDESA. Following that, KTH led a consortium of international partners to develop the Global Electrification Platform (GEP) (electrifynow.energydata.info), funded by the World Bank.
The OnSSET tool was used in order to generate 216 electrification investment scenarios per country for ~60 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and Asia and the Pacific. This makes the GEP the most comprehensive platform available to date for data on electrification pathways.
The GEP is supported by a number of international partners working with SDG 7: Power for All, Sustainable Energy for All, ESMAP, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Development Programme, United Nation Economic Commission for Africa, UK Aid and Facebook Social Good.
The platform enables anyone working with energy access, to engage with governments and other stakeholders to discuss strategies to increase electrification rates in these ~60 countries.
The platform builds on open data and OnSSET which is an open source tool. This enables public institutions, private companies and academics to develop their own electrification analysis with significantly lower barriers than before.