By Maria Gallucci
In Zimbabwe, where access to the electrical grid is sparse and unreliable, millions of people still burn wood to cook food and heat their homes. The practice is partly to blame for worsening deforestation in the landlocked country. In recent years, government officials have proposed a seemingly straightforward solution: Extend the electric grid into rural villages, and reduce the use of wood for fuel.
But Ellen Fungisai Chipango, a Zimbabwe-born researcher, says that rural electrification isn’t likely to provide any quick fixes. That’s because adding poles, wires, and even off-grid solar systems will do little to alleviate the crushing poverty that leads people to cut large swaths of trees. In her field work, she found that initiatives to expand energy access in Zimbabwe often overlook the larger political and economic forces at play.
Chipango is among researchers worldwide who are closely examining long-held assumptions that electrifying rural homes can boost family incomes, help children study, reduce indoor air pollution, or protect the environment. Stakeholders including scrappy solar startups, major oil and gas companies, and the United Nations have all pledged to work toward improving energy access for one or more of those reasons. But recent studies suggest that, in order to deliver real benefits, programs must be more comprehensive.
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“For almost all the traditional outcomes that people talk about when expanding energy access, there are two or three other things that people need for that outcome to actually be realized,” said Ken Lee, who leads the India division of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). “You can’t eat electricity,” he added.
Lee and colleagues led an experiment in Western Kenya comparing the experiences of rural “under grid” households, meaning homes that are located next to, but not connected to, utility infrastructure. Kenya’s Rural Electrification Authority connected randomly selected households, at a cost of more than US $1,000 each; the rest remained disconnected. After 18 months, researchers found no obvious differences between the socioeconomic living standards of both groups. (Aspects of the Kenya experiment are ongoing.)
The initial results, published in March, surprised the team, which expected to see more tangible gains among the electrified households. Not only did budget constraints keep many participants from buying appliances and using the new electricity supply, researchers also found little improvement in children’s test scores. Even if kids could study under a lightbulb at night, they still attended underfunded schools in the morning.
Utility mismanagement further undermined electrification efforts. During the rural grid expansion, nearly one-fourth of all utility poles were apparently stolen, possibly leaving the connected residents with a less reliable power supply in the long-run.