This guest post was supplied to the Faculty of Environment in anticipation of the 2017 TD Walter Bean Lecture by Nigel Moore, Manager, Global Programs and Initiatives, Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) is part of their series on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Faculty of Environment. It was originally posted here.

Imagine a family home without a single light bulb to turn on at night; a hospital without a refrigerator for medicines and vaccines; a school without heat in the winter or fans during the summer; a farmer who must water his crop by hand. For the one billion people in the world today who live without electricity, situations like these are an everyday reality.

Having reliable access to electricity is essential to decent quality health centres, schools, and homes. Using electricity to pump water or light up a shop at night opens up economic opportunities that can allow individuals and families to climb out of poverty for the first time.

In addition, achieving universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy – enshrined by the United Nations as Sustainable Development Goal 7—will help determine whether or not the global community will reach its climate change targets.

These twin objectives of: a) providing energy for an additional billion people so that they can live better lives; and b) doing so with energy sources that do not exacerbate environmental problems—make SDG 7 the quintessential sustainable development challenge of this century. If we do not tackle this, it’s hard to imagine a future where we achieve the rest of our global goals.  

This is why in September 2015 the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, in partnership with a global consortium of partners, launched the Affordable Energy for Humanity Initiative. This platform for collaboration aims to bring Waterloo innovation to the global fight against energy poverty. As a first step, we worked with the Waterloo Global Science Initiative to host a global summit on the topic in April 2016. Later this month we will be releasing the final report from this process, the ‘OpenAccess Energy Blueprint’. This document lays out a number of concrete steps that decision-makers can take in the areas of policy, finance, entrepreneurship support, education and skills training to move this agenda forward.

What emerged from the summit was a deep appreciation for the rapid pace of innovation and the diversity and scale of new clean energy solutions that are on the threshold of making significant positive impacts on the lives of people living without electricity.  New technologies and business models hold the genuine promise of delivering clean energy to the most remote and impoverished regions on the planet at a price point that is affordable without any form of subsidy. Suddenly, a new pathway is emerging to help electrify a billion lives that have been consistently left in the dark.

Improvements in solar, battery and LED technologies, as well as advancements in the integration of information and communications technologies have driven down costs substantially and made what was recently considered futuristic, imminently possible.

Dramatic efficiency gains mean that a solar panel that, ten years ago, could only power a single 25 watt light bulb can now provide the power for four LED lights, a television, a phone charger, and a radio.

The massive adoption of mobile phones throughout the developing world and the mobile banking revolution that has come with it has allowed remote rural customers to utilise pay-as-you-go solar energy. This technology allows people living on less than 5 dollars per day to make manageable and convenient payments for the solar energy they use by simply sending an SMS message. In places where making a phone call is not even possible, the ‘internet of things’ now allows renewable energy micro-grids at the village scale to be monitored and controlled remotely by technical experts.

The result of all of this innovation has been the birth of the renewable off-grid energy sector, which according to the International Energy Agency must provide for the energy needs of roughly half a billion people if we are to reach universal access to energy by 2030 (the other 500 million people, according to this analysis, would be connected to central electricity grids).

Hundreds of companies now offer small solar systems in developing world markets. Our goal is to contribute to the success of this growing sector and help new companies succeed in having a sustainable, scalable impact without the need for subsidies.

There are already more than 90 million people in Asia and Africa who use solar lanterns and small solar home systems – 21 million of these people have never had access to modern energy before now. In Kenya, more than 30% of people living off-grid now use a solar product. In Bangladesh, a government program to incentivize solar home systems has led to the sale of over 4 million solar panels since 2003. These systems now provide electricity to 12% of the country’s population. As a result, 120,000 jobs have been created in the budding Bangladeshi solar energy industry.

But energy access is not just a problem in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia. In fact, the problem is evident in our own backyard too—in approximately 300 remote Canadian communities that are not connected to the electricity grid. Primarily home to indigenous peoples, these communities rely on aging diesel generators for electricity, the fuel for which must be trucked or flown in at huge expense. Resulting spills are frequent and have, to date, racked up a federal government liability for clean-up costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps more.

Many of these communities are subject to load restriction status, which means the existing system is incapable of meeting any new demand. No new buildings, no new businesses, no new community centres, no new homes. A failing electricity supply system has reinforced a severe housing crisis, unsafe and insufficient water treatment and other critical infrastructure, and lack of local economic opportunities that have led to tragic consequences for many young people in these communities.

As is the case in Kenya or Bangladesh, renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind, hydro and biomass hold significant promise for improving the quality of life in Canada’s remote indigenous communities. A study conducted by Waterloo Engineering Professor Claudio Canizares in collaboration with the World Wildlife Foundation showed that, if implemented appropriately, renewable energy adoption in many of these communities can result in significant cost savings over time. Renewables also offer a pathway out of energy poverty that aligns with indigenous values of environmental stewardship and self-determination.

With a renewed and invigorated commitment from Canadian policy-makers, engagement and buy-in from the communities themselves, and the leveraging of Canadian knowledge, skills and capacity for innovation, we can create an energy access revolution here at home. One that provides jobs and training where they are needed most, delivers a basic level of service to communities that have persistently been left behind with little hope for a better future, and helps make Canada a leader on the world stage in the fight against energy poverty.

Nigel Moore is the Manager of Global Programs and Initiatives at the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE), University of Waterloo

This story is part of their series on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Faculty of Environment.