Dr. John Holmes

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THE SMART VILLAGES INITIATIVE
Date 20 June 2017
Presenter: Dr John Holmes

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Ensure access to affordable, reliable,
sustainable and modern energy for all
By 2030:
■ Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and
modern energy services
■ Increase substantially the share of renewable energy
in the global energy mix
■ Double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency

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ENERGY ACCESS AS ENABLER OF MOST SDGS

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ENERGY AS A CATALYST FOR DEVELOPMENT

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SMART CITIES: NEED FOR A VILLAGE LEVEL ANALOGUE
SMART
VILLAGES
SMART
CITIES
47% of world’s
population and 70% of
the world’s poor live in
rural villages

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SMART VILLAGES: SOME KEY FEATURES
Key services: education, health , clean water and sanitation
 ICT connectivity: distance learning and world’s knowledge base
 Modern health services and tele-medicine
 Provision of clean water and safe sanitation
Foster entrepreneurship in the provision and use of energy services
 Capture more of the agricultural value chain
 Create new businesses
Through ICT connectivity, participate in governance processes
 At local, regional and national levels
 Smart communities with strong rural/urban linkages
Building more resilient communities better able to
respond to shocks

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SHIFTING THE BALANCE OF OPPORTUNITIES
BETWEEN CITIES AND VILLAGES
Technological
advances
Game changing
technologies

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THE SMART VILLAGES INITIATIVE
Focus: sustainable local energy solutions for rural
communities
Policy advice: an insightful, ‘view from the frontline’ of
the challenges of village energy provision for
development, and how they can be overcome
Engagement: bringing together the key players:
scientists, entrepreneurs, villagers, NGO’s, financers,
regulators and policy makers etc:
 What are the barriers?
 How can they be overcome?
 What messages to funders and policy makers?

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Science
community
Frontline
workers
Policy &
development
communities
Facilitating discussion
between communities…
…on the barriers to energy access for rural
development and how they can be overcome
More
effective
policy &
interventions

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Project team:
Universities of
Cambridge and
Oxford
Key partners:
National Science
Academies and their
networks
Funding:
charitable
foundations:
CMEDT & TWCF
SMART VILLAGES INITIATIVE: A PARTNERSHIP

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SIX REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMMES
 East Africa
 Southeast Asia
 South Asia
 South America
 West Africa
 Central America/Caribbean /Mexico
12-18 month engagement
programmes:
 Workshops → reports/policy
briefs
 Briefing meetings
 Capacity building event
 Media workshop
 Entrepreneurial competition
 Final event pulling together key
stakeholders

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REGIONAL WORKSHOPS
East Africa
 First East Africa regional workshop: Arusha, Tanzania,
June 2014
 East Africa media dialogue workshop: Kigali, Rwanda,
November 2014
 East Africa Community Leaders’ dialogue workshop:
Terrat, Tanzania, August 2015
 Concluding high-level workshop for East Africa
engagement: Kigali, Rwanda, September 2015
West Africa
 First West Africa Regional workshop: Accra, Ghana,
May 2016
 The WEF nexus, Senegal, August 2016
 Country focus – Togo, February 2017
 Concluding high-level workshop for West Africa
engagement:, Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, March 2017
South Asia
 Smart Villages in Nepal: Kathmandu, Nepal, April 2015
 Southeast Asia media dialogue workshop, Seoul, June
2015
 Smart Villages in Bangladesh: Dhaka, Bangladesh,
August 2015
 Smart Villages in Pakistan: Islamabad, October 2015
 State level brainstorms: Odisha & Ranchi, India, April
2016
 Energy & Agriculture, Hyderabad India, September 2016
Southeast Asia
 First Southeast Asia regional workshop: Kuching, Malaysia,
January 2015
 Southeast Asia media dialogue workshop: Seoul, South Korea,
September 2015
 Energy for off-grid islands: Bunaken island, Indonesia,
November 2015
 Sustainable dissemination of improved cookstoves: lessons
from Southeast Asia: Yangon, Myanmar, December 2015
 Smart Villages and resilience to natural disasters: National
University of Singapore, May 2016
 The energy & water nexus, Philippines June 2016
 Asia wrap up Workshop, Thailand March 2017
South America
 First South America regional workshop: Lima, Peru,
January 2016
 Sustainable energy for rural communities in Bolivia: La
Paz, Bolivia, April 2016
 Media workshop, Paraguay, July 2016
 Resilience, Ecuador January 2017
Central America, Mexico and Caribbean
 Opening regional workshop, Dominican Republic,
November 2016
 Off-grid energy in Haiti, January 2017
 Country focus workshop Nicaragua May 2017
 Final regional workshop for Latin America, Ecuador May
2017

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ADDITIONAL ENGAGEMENT EVENTS
Forward look workshops:
 New technologies for off-grid villages – a
look ahead: January 2014
 Potential breakthroughs in the use of
energy in off-grid villages: December
2015
 Innovative business and financial
models: January 2016
 Frontier energy storage technologies:
Edinburgh University, May 2016
 Mini-grids, Bangalore, India July 2016
Webinars
 Off the beaten path: rural energy and remoteness
 Failure and off-grid energy access: why failure
matters to development
 Energy entrepreneurs: business models for off grid
energy and social impact
 The big chill: off-grid cooling for water, refrigeration,
spaces and more
 Addressing energy governance: questions of scale
and scope
 Women and energy entrepreneurship: business
models for off-grid energy and social impact
 Scaling up gender: women in off-the grid energy
business models and supply chains
 Going off the grid: disaster, resilience, and off-grid
energy
 Growing smart villages: agriculture and energy for
development
 Healthy villages are smart villages: Health, energy
and development
 Refugees and energy: meeting the needs of
refugees and displaced people
 A breath of fresh air: What’s next for clean
cookstoves?

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STUDIES AND LITERATURE REVIEWS
■ Book of Essays
■ Smart Villages Scoping Study
■ Electricity for off-grid villages: An overview of the current state of play
■ Smart Villages and Gender
■ Business models for home-based electricity services
■ The Smart Villages Initiative: Interim Review of Findings
■ Rubagabaga Mini-Hydro Public-Private-Community Partnership Project: Baseline data
analysis
■ Energy and agriculture for smart villages in India
■ The future of direct current electrical systems for the off-grid environment
■ Business models for mini-grids
■ Indigenous communities, ICT and rural communities: case studies in Tanzania and Sarawak
■ Making smart villages a reality
■ Electrification of health clinics in rural areas: challenges and opportunities
■ Education and the electrification of rural schools
■ Smart villages and democratic engagement
■ Smart Villages and stemming biodiversity loss

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REPORTING
Detailed
report of
findings
EASAC-SVI
Summary
Statement
Workshop
reports
Policy briefs
Workshop
presentations
Technical
reports
Available at: www.e4sv.org

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DRAFT SUMMARY STATEMENT
1. Enhancing integration and coordination
2. Supportive policy frameworks
3. Building markets
4. Access to finance
5. Science and technology
6. Capacity building

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1. ENHANCING INTEGRATION AND COORDINATION
■ Current silo approach: missed synergies and reduced development
benefits
■ Move to much more integrated approaches addressing village
development holistically: framework provided by smart village
concept
■ Closer collaboration between all players: ministries – development
organisations – public and private sectors
■ Appoint senior champions in government with authority to establish
integrated working across ministries
■ More seamless experience for frontline workers reducing their
transaction costs and enabling them to scale up their activities

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2. SUPPORTIVE POLICY FRAMEWORKS
■ Ensure energy access initiatives fully integrated with other rural
development initiatives
■ Backed by high-level political commitment sustained through political
cycles
■ Stable and supportive policy frameworks providing clarity on roles
■ Coherent and firmly based in realities
■ Regulations provide simplified and streamlined procedures that
reduce transaction costs
■ National energy access plan

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3. BUILDING MARKETS
■ Build effective markets rather than give things away
■ Subsidies should be carefully targeted and time-limited
■ For mini-grids: support the establishment of effective public-private-
community partnerships
■ Support efforts to reduce mini-grid costs and increase revenues

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MINI-GRIDS: HOW CAN WE BALANCE THE BOOKS?
 Technical developments reduce
equipment costs
 Economies of scale: replication
 Anchor loads absorb costs
 Reduce set-up overheads
 Reduce financing costs
 Capital cost subsidy
 Get the tariffs right: constraints of
affordability & equality
 Stimulate productive enterprise to
increase incomes
 Increase load factors: improved control
systems & productive enterprises
 Increase level of connections
 Operating cost subsidy
costs revenues

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4. ACCESS TO FINANCE
■ For universal energy access by 2030: increase funding by factor of 3
to 10
■ Private sector funds:
■ credit guarantees
■ Stable and supportive policy and regulatory frameworks
■ Enhance capacity and sector familiarity of finance organisations
■ Publication of payment records
■ Reduce transaction costs:
■ Project bundling
■ Cooperatives at village level
■ Off-grid development and innovation fund

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5. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
■ Support and enable closer collaboration between university
researchers and frontline organisations
■ Expose young people in villages to the new technologies: innovative
ideas
■ Develop better methodologies to evaluate development outcomes
arising from energy access
■ Key areas for R&D:
■ Batteries
■ Recycling
■ Intelligent control systems
■ New PV technologies
■ Plug and play capability
■ Increase appliance efficiency

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6. CAPACITY BUILDING
■ Evaluate value chains to identify shortfalls in skills and capacities: put
in place training programmes to address
■ Invest in business incubation and advisory support services
■ Awareness raising for villagers

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Thank you for your attention
www.e4sv.org | info@e4sv.org | @e4SmartVillages