The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation provide the Global Solar Atlas—in addition to a series of global, regional and country GIS data layers and poster maps—to support the scale-up of solar power in their client countries. The primary aim of the atlas is to provide easy access to solar resource data globally.

The CLEER tool is a user-friendly calculator that enables users to calculate emissions reduced or avoided from clean energy activities. It helps users estimate, track and report greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduced or avoided from clean energy; identify high impact activities with cost-effective GHG reductions; evaluate the emissions reduction potential of planned activities and possible alternatives; and estimate projected GHG emissions reduced or avoided to 2030.

This knowledge note is the third of three case studies that concerns scaling up access to electricity in Africa, Bangladesh, and Rwanda. Rwanda’s rapid achievements in expanding access to electricity after 2009 were made possible by one of the first applications of a sector-wide approach (SWAp) in the electricity sector, according to the authors who say the World Bank played a pivotal role in the operationalization of the SWAp, first by assisting in the formulation of an investment prospectus that laid the groundwork for technical, financial, and implementation planning.

This report provides the results of a review of the evidence that investments in electricity-generating capacity have benefits for poor people, and what factors influence that relationship. The review begins by elucidating a theory to break down the causal chain between additional renewable electricity generation capacity and poverty impacts in four stages or links, which can be formulated as four research questions: (1) What is the link between increased renewable electricity capacity and higher availability and reliability of supply?

This paper explores how essential economic development might be reconciled with the need to keep carbon emissions in check. The authors develop a geographically explicit framework and use spatial modeling and cost estimates from recent engineering studies to determine where standalone renewable energy generation is a cost-effective alternative to centralized grid supply. Their results suggest that decentralized renewable energy will likely play an important role in expanding rural energy access.

This eight-page publication addresses (1) why tracking access to electricity is important, (2) the current level of access worldwide, (3) how access has evolved historically and (4) what access will look like in 2030.

Based on cross-section data from a 2004 survey of approximately 2,300 households in rural Bangladesh, the authors of this paper studied the welfare impacts of household energy use, including those of modern energy, and they estimate the household minimum energy requirement that could be used as a basis for an energy poverty line.

Nepal depends entirely on imports for meeting its demand for petroleum products, which account for the largest share in total import volume. Diesel is the main petroleum product consumed in the country and accounts for 38 per cent of the total national CO2 emissions from fuel consumption. There is a general perception that the country would economically benefit if part of imported diesel is substituted with domestically produced Jatropha-based biodiesel.

This book examines the potential of African countries to produce biofuels for export or domestic consumption and looks at the policy framework needed. It is part of the effort by the World Bank's Africa region to examine critical issues that affect the region and recommend policies that effectively address these issues while providing an enabling environment for the private sector.

In 2009, the World Bank established the Africa Renewable Energy and Access (AFREA) program to focus on the special needs of the energy sector in Africa, where limited access to modern energy constrains development and the opportunity presents itself to leapfrog to cleaner renewable energy supplies, instead of “locking in” to conventional carbon dioxide laden fossil fuels. The Bank set up AFREA as part of its Energy Sector Management Assessment Program and Clean Energy Investment Framework. This report provides a retrospective overview on AFREA Phase I achievements and lessons learned.