IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/feemfe/285024.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Digitalization for Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa : Challenges, Opportunities and Potential Business Models

Author

Listed:
  • Mazzoni, Davide

Abstract

Innovative business models supported by digital technologies, together with the widening connectivity and data collection, are already giving a big contribution in fostering the access to electricity and clean cooking in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper gives an overview on the actual state of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa and the current technologies used to provide it, followed by a description of the key trends and drivers of the ongoing African digital transformation. A deep analysis of the Pay-as-you-go business model in the off-grid solar sector will shed light on how this transformation started some years ago and the way it is affecting society in many ways. Strengths and opportunities — as well as weaknesses and risks of the model — are provided through a screening of the most representative business experiences in East and West Africa, financial aspects and market analysis. The perspective of both companies and end-users have been considered here. The last section gives recommendations to policy-makers on how to ride the wave of digitalization to foster the access to clean and reliable energy, by acting on the electrification planning, regulations, business environment, distribution channels and mobile money environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Mazzoni, Davide, 2019. "Digitalization for Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa : Challenges, Opportunities and Potential Business Models," FEP: Future Energy Program 285024, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) > FEP: Future Energy Program.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:feemfe:285024
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.285024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/285024/files/NDL2019-002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.285024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kohnert, Dirk, 2021. "The impact of digitalization on poverty alleviation in Africa," MPRA Paper 110269, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Sébastien Galanti & Ҫiğdem Yilmaz Ӧzsoy, 2022. "Digital finance, development, and climate change," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Statistics for Sustainable Finance, volume 56, Bank for International Settlements.
    3. Irving Fisher Committee, 2022. "Statistics for Sustainable Finance," IFC Bulletins, Bank for International Settlements, number 56, July.
    4. Falchetta, Giacomo & Mistry, Malcolm N., 2021. "The role of residential air circulation and cooling demand for electrification planning: Implications of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. Davide Mazzoni, 2019. "Digitalization for Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa : Challenges, Opportunities and Potential Business Models," Working Papers 2019.02, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. Kohnert, Dirk, 2021. "L'impact de la numérisation sur la réduction de la pauvreté en Afrique [The impact of digitalization on poverty alleviation in Africa]," MPRA Paper 110297, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Mukisa, Nicholas & Manitisa, Mele Sikimeti & Nduhuura, Paul & Tugume, Erick & Chalwe, Chanda Karen, 2022. "Solar home systems adoption in Sub-Saharan African countries: Household economic and environmental benefits assessment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 836-852.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Resource /Energy Economics and Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:feemfe:285024. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.