NEWS Video of The University of Waterloo /​ Perimeter Institute Summit on “Open Access” EnergyApril 22, 2016

Despite many decades of glob­al efforts direct­ed at mass elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, we have failed to deliv­er mod­ern elec­tric­i­ty ser­vices to approx­i­mate­ly one-third of the peo­ple on Earth. 1.1 bil­lion peo­ple con­tin­ue to live with­out access to elec­tric­i­ty. A fur­ther bil­lion have unre­li­able access. Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency’s most opti­mistic sce­nario for future ener­gy access, the num­ber of peo­ple world­wide with­out elec­tric­i­ty in the year 2030 is pro­ject­ed to remain above 1 bil­lion. In Sub-Saha­ran Africa the prob­lem is pro­ject­ed to get worse, not bet­ter. The fact that pop­u­la­tion growth is out­strip­ping elec­tri­fi­ca­tion means that by 2030 the num­ber of peo­ple with­out elec­tric­i­ty will have risen by 10% (16% in rur­al areas) from 2009 lev­els. Clear­ly, our approach to open­ing up ener­gy access has to change.

To watch the pan­el dis­cus­sion (the first half) and Pro­fes­sor Kam­men’s talk (the 2nd half), click here.