NEWS FIRST-​​OF-​​KIND ENERGY ACCESS RESEARCH AND OUTREACH PROJECT LAUNCHED


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FIRST-​​OF-​​KIND ENERGY ACCESS RESEARCH AND OUTREACH PROJECT LAUNCHED

Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and the Power for All Campaign

Join Forces to Accel­er­ate Energy Access

March 31–San Fran­cisco–Today the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley’s Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL), an energy research and inter­na­tional deploy­ment cen­ter, and Power for All, a global cam­paign to advance decen­tral­ized renew­able energy (DRE) tech­nolo­gies in order to accel­er­ate energy access for the 1.1 bil­lion peo­ple liv­ing with­out power, announced a new part­ner­ship to build the Plat­form for Energy Access Knowl­edge (PEAK).

PEAK is an inter­ac­tive infor­ma­tion data­base designed to help aggre­gate and repack­age the best research on energy access—from a range of orga­ni­za­tions such as the U.S. gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive Power Africa, REN21, IRENA, the World Bank, aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions such as UC Berke­ley, non-​​governmental agen­cies and com­mu­nity groups—into com­pelling data-​​driven sto­ries for a range of tar­get audi­ences includ­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers and investors.

PEAK, a joint project of RAEL and Power for All, com­piles and syn­the­sizes data on energy access and dis­trib­uted renew­ables to ensure max­i­mum vis­i­bil­ity, usabil­ity and dis­cov­er­abil­ity of that infor­ma­tion by indi­vid­u­als, orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ties work­ing to make energy ser­vices acces­si­ble to all.

PEAK’s first phase will focus on enabling the Power for All cam­paign and its part­ners to lever­age crit­i­cal evi­dence and cre­ate com­pelling visu­al­iza­tions of the sector’s find­ings. Phases two and three will serve the broader com­mu­nity with an open-​​source tool for rapid response and sur­fac­ing pow­er­ful, data-​​based evi­dence that proves we can achieve energy access faster and far more cost-​​effectively via decen­tral­ized renew­ables than con­ven­tional wis­dom predicts.

Achiev­ing uni­ver­sal energy access is not only one of the most press­ing issues of our time—but also one of the most solv­able,” said Pro­fes­sor Dan Kam­men, direc­tor of RAEL and recently appointed U.S. Sci­ence Envoy for the U.S. State Depart­ment. “If we enable entre­pre­neurs, civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and gov­ern­ments to quickly and eas­ily access the best sci­ence and research on dis­trib­uted renew­ables in emerg­ing mar­kets, we believe we can help accel­er­ate uni­ver­sal energy access.”

PEAK is coor­di­nated by Dr. Rebekah Shirley (Post-​​Doctoral Researcher, UC Berke­ley) and Dr. Peter Alstone (ITRI-​​Rosenfeld Post-​​Doctoral Fel­low at Lawrence Berke­ley National Laboratory)—both of whose doc­toral stud­ies were advised by Pro­fes­sor Kammen—and a team of grad­u­ate stu­dent researchers at UC Berkeley.

Sev­eral well-​​known insti­tu­tions and resources are con­duct­ing impor­tant research on the role of decen­tral­ized renew­able energy in accel­er­at­ing energy access. How­ever, many reports and the asso­ci­ated data sets fail to reach key audi­ences. In one exam­ple, a 2014 World Bank study found that nearly one-​​third of their PDF reports had never been down­loaded, and 40 per­cent of their reports had been down­loaded fewer than 100 times. PEAK is designed to improve this equa­tion for all crit­i­cal energy access research. PEAK will be pre­viewed at the Clean Energy Min­is­te­r­ial (CEM 7) par­al­lel pro­gram, Ener­gy­Ac­cessX, on June 1 in San Francisco.

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About the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Laboratory

Pro­fes­sor Kam­men founded and directs the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL) is a unique new research, devel­op­ment, project imple­men­ta­tion, and com­mu­nity out­reach facil­ity based at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley in the Energy and Resources Group and the Depart­ment of Nuclear Engi­neer­ing. RAEL focuses on design­ing, test­ing, and dis­sem­i­nat­ing renew­able and appro­pri­ate energy sys­tems. The laboratory’s mis­sion is to help these tech­nolo­gies real­ize their full poten­tial to con­tribute to envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in both indus­tri­al­ized and devel­op­ing nations while also address­ing the cul­tural con­text and range of poten­tial social impacts of any new tech­nol­ogy or resource man­age­ment sys­tem. Learn more at www​.rael​.berke​ley​.edu.

RAEL Media Contacts:

Pro­fes­sor Daniel M. Kam­men: kammen@​berkeley.​edu, +1 510 642 1640

Twit­ter: @dan_kammen

 

About Power for All

Power for All is a global cam­paign to accel­er­ate the market-​​based growth of decen­tral­ized renew­ables as the key to achiev­ing uni­ver­sal energy access. The cam­paign serves as a col­lec­tive voice for busi­nesses and civil soci­ety focused on off-​​grid renew­able solu­tions, includ­ing decen­tral­ized solar, hydro, bio­mass and wind. Dis­trib­uted renew­ables are the fastest, most cost-​​effective path to mod­ern energy ser­vices in emerg­ing mar­kets; a potent growth engine for economies and jobs; and an impact mul­ti­plier that cre­ates more resilient, self-​​sufficient and healthy com­mu­ni­ties. Learn more at www​.pow​er​forall​.org

Power for All Media Contacts

Susie Wheel­don: +44 7903 701 343, susie@​powerforall.​org

William Brent: +34 684 314 268, william@​powerforall.​org

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Energy & Resources Group
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3050
Phone: (510) 642-1640
Fax: (510) 642-1085
Email: ergdeskb@berkeley.edu


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