Changing Utility Development
Bailey Bearss is an International Program Officer at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, where she specializes in working with utility regulators in East Africa and South Asia.
With nearly 1.1 billion people worldwide living without access to electricity, there is a global focus on increasing access to electricity in underserved areas of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Programs funded through government aid agencies and private sector investors are particularly invested in green energy solutions for rural populations in areas that are grossly underserved by the national grid. They have also been supported through global initiatives such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Investment in mini-grids and other sources of distributed generation is growing to meet such global electrification goals.
Distributed generation, utilizing smaller scale technologies to produce electricity closer to the end users of power, may be changing utility development in developing countries.
In many cases, distributed generators, often mini-grids powered by renewable energy or home solar power systems, can provide lower cost and higher reliability power with fewer environmental costs than traditional power generators.
In East Africa, small-scale mini-grids, typically powered by solar panels, directly link to distribution networks which can power a small village for vital electric needs. They involve drastically less investment in infrastructure than traditional grid expansion.