`

Efficiency for Access Unveils New Website

A message from Katrina Pielli – Senior Energy Advisor at USAID’s Power Africa and co-Chair of the Efficiency for Access Coalition donor roundtable

11 September 2018

Throughout the quiet summer months, the Efficiency for Access Coalition has been hard at work setting in motion a number of online tools and knowledge products that we hope will be a great resource to the energy access community regarding the role of super-efficient, off-grid appropriate appliances.

We invite you to visit www.efficiencyforaccess.org
to take a look across donor roundtable members, lean more about our theory of change, find more details regarding our supported programs,
and our collective areas of focus. These resources are important for Power Africa as we look for opportunities to collaborate with other development agencies on off-grid appliance activities – discussions that are fostered through the Efficiency for Access Donor Coalition.

I’m particularly excited about the newest analysis captured in the Off-Grid Appliance Data Trends report which shares insights on product attributes such as energy efficiency, quality, and pricing across off-grid appropriate televisions, fans, and refrigerators based on laboratory test data. This is just a glimpse of what the Off-Grid Appliance Data Platform will have to offer as a key feature of the Efficiency for Access website. Launching late this year, the Data Platform is an interactive, user-friendly database that will share accurate, consistent, and up-to-date product performance data across fans, televisions, and refrigerators, and will soon include solar water pumps. This data can quickly inform off-grid company purchasing decisions, development partner and government incentives, and distribution partnerships.

The new website weaves together all the programs and initiatives that Efficiency for Access donors bring to the table, either on their own or in collaboration. A great example is the Global LEAP Awards, which Power Africa has had the pleasure to support alongside UK DfID and EnDev, including last year’s first-ever off-grid refrigerator competition and procurement incentive, also supported by USAID. We expect to announce results from the final stage of that competition, based on an innovative field-testing process that placed more than 30 refrigerators in off-grid communities across Uganda, later this fall. In addition, Efficiency for Access is gearing up to kick off the 2019 Global LEAP Awards, which will include another competition for off-grid refrigerators and, for the first time ever, a competition for solar water pumps, reflecting the importance of enabling productive uses of energy through off-grid appropriate appliances. Interested parties should keep an eye on the Awards page for more details and the official launch announcement.

Going forward, we hope all stakeholders interested in the off- and weak-grid appliance market will engage with, and amplify, our collective work. Visit our Get Involved
page to learn more about the different ways in which we hope to work with all of you, and please take a moment to sign up for the quarterly Efficiency for Access newsletter to stay informed of our latest research outputs, sector events, and eventually, R&D and co-funding opportunities.

As we collectively move forward with meeting SDG7 and ensuring affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy access for all, recognizing the role of off-grid appropriate appliances is critical. Through the Efficiency for Access coalition, we are enabling consumers to reach even higher levels of energy access faster. For example, when super-efficient appliances are used, the total cost of solar home systems and their associated appliances can be reduced by as much as 50%. We welcome you to join us!