Position Paper – Off-Grid Renewable Energies to achieve SDG-7 and SDG-13: Cheaper, Cleaner and Smarter
The number of people without access to modern forms of electricity still remains at a level of almost 1 billion. Access levels are unevenly distributed with especially Sub-Saharan African countries tailing behind on ambitions to reach universal access to electricity by 2030. Significantly more investments are needed to achieve SDG-7 to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all,” as well as SDG-13 to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.”
Until now what has been missing is evidence of the potential of off-grid technologies to achieve both SDG-7 and SDG-13 in a cheaper, cleaner and smarter manner than other alternatives.
New evidence from the GIZ, Reiner Lemoine Institute and the greenwerk. study “Off-Grid Renewable Energy for Climate Action” is without ambiguity: off-grid renewable energy solutions, such as clean energy mini-grids and solar home systems have significant environmental, practical, economic and socio-economic merits over grid expansion.
Off-grid renewables are vastly superior to its competitors on three parameters:
- Cheaper cost of deployment
- Cleaner than grid extension
- Smarter, faster and more reliable