Access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa: the regressive effect of tariff structures on urban and rural on-grid households

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the energy access gap between urban and rural populations remains considerable, even among households and businesses with potential access to the grid. As the interface between electricity generation conditions, the end user and public energy-access policy, tariff structures are the major instrument of access. This article evaluates how electricity tariff structures contribute to the continued existence of the energy access gap and looks at whether this gap is primarily between rural and urban populations. Using a dynamic panel model with random effects (1990-2012; 33 countries divided into 4 groups; 17 variables related to residential and non-residential consumption, production and share of income spent on electricity), the article shows the systematically regressive effect of electricity pricing on access to both residential and non-residential consumption. We find that electricity pricing fails to provide reduced rates that enable access to the poor, neglects households that have passed the threshold of the first consumption block and is ineffective at addressing energy poverty in both urban and rural households. For households to access a centralised power grid, we find that the criterion of location is less important than the economic conditions of the customers served.