News & Events
4 June 2018: WB survey of Tanzania’s mini-grid sector
Find the first major survey of Tanzania’s mini-grid sector, published by the World Bank.
The analysis points out three key actions for governments and practitioners across the continent:
- Create an adaptive and responsive policy approach
- Focus on the entire mini-grid ecosystem
- Invest in both qualitative and quantitative assessments of the development impacts of mini-grids
18 April 2018: Nationally 14% of households main source of lighting is solar
The KNBS report 2018 indicates (see section 3.5 in particular), that only 3% of rural Kenyans use environmentally sustainable sources of energy (14% at national level). At the same time the World Economic Forum states that, in terms of increasing access to electrity and transitioning to enviromentally fiendly sources of energy, Kenya “shows the hightest readiness scores among Sub-Saharan countries, whose popoulation faces energy access challenges” (see pages 7 and 31 to 33 of the WEF Fostering Effective Energy Transition report 2018. Find here a newspaper article that gives more information on the same. The article refers to the two reports mentioned: KNBS Basic report 2018 and WEF Fostering Effective Energy Transition report 2018.
25 April 2018: Kenya race to electrification powered by the sun
I-DEV, partner of the GMG Managing Entity, has published a report on solar electrification in Kenya. It highlights the growing interest and viability of energy solar solution. Find the report here.
17 April 2018: Launch of AMDA
The Africa Mini-grid Developers Association (AMDA) has been launched on 13th April 2018. A press release can be found here.
AMDA has chapters already in 2 countries (Kenya, Tanzania) and plans to expand to 3 more countries this year (Nigeria, Ethiopia and Uganda) and eventually to all of Africa. The current 11 member companies service more than 11,000 connections, and include innovative start-ups and established utilities.
Now is a pivotal moment for the mini-grid industry and AMDA looks forward to working with you to achieve our full potential. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that up to 290 million Africans will be served by mini-grids by 2030, also noting that mini-grids and other distributed, renewable solutions are the least cost option for connecting three-quarters of the unelectrified population.
If you're interested in learning more, or have any questions, please feel free to reach out to AMDA at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.