Berkeley Rural Energy Group (BREG)

The Berkeley Rural Energy Group (BREG) is a network of more than 45 NGO, private sector, and university experts located in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA. The mission of the Berkeley Rural Energy Group is two-fold. First, to better network the intellectual community in the Bay Area who are working on remote energy access in developing countries. Second, to provide expertise in energy development to outside foundations, NGOs and companies who are interested in enabling remote energy access in developing country communities.

History of BREG:
BREG, formally known the the Berkeley Rural Electrification IDEA lab, was started by three graduate students at the Energy and Resources Group in 2008.  It started as occasional lunch meetings between expert grad students working on rural electrification in developing countries. Since then, the group has grown into more than 45 graduate student members from across UC Berkeley campus, with partnerships with various NGO, private sector and foundation contacts. BREG now has expanded its focus from rural electrification to include improved cookstoves, unique business models for emerging markets, cultural adaptation to new technologies, financing of energy programs and carbon market financing.  In fall 2010, BREG launched a popular graduate discussion class called the “Implementation and Dissemination of Rural Energy Systems”, co-taught by Mary Louise Gifford, Prof. Dan Kammen and visiting scholar Omar Masera. In summer 2011, BREG was reinvigorated, with summer seminars and presentations given by representatives from Duron Energy and the US Department of Energy. This fall, BREG has launched an expert meeting group, which networks NGO, private sector, foundations and consulting groups with Berkeley researchers.

BREG Expertise:
Much of BREG activity focuses on the last mile implementation of rural energy access.  Our combined experience spans energy program implementation, design, impact evaluation, technology development and energy microfinance. We are engineers, environmental health scientists, economists, public policy practitioners and social scientists with a passion for contributing to the alleviation of world poverty through enabling access to energy. We recognize that development and energy solutions are not only disseminations of technology but that they must also be tailored to and appropriate for the specific contexts in which they are deployed.  Thus, our solutions often fall outside the purview of conventional development solutions.

BREG expertise focuses on the following areas:

    Program and project implementation and design
    Appropriate technology development
    Energy microfinance
    Independent scientific monitoring and evaluation

The Berkeley Rural Energy Group is sponsored by the Blum Center for Developing Economies.