Page 6 - AsiaElec Week 03 2023

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real amount of investment needed is higher than pointed out the role of decentralised renewable
the figures set forth in the report. energy to increase electricity access,” she said.
“This required amount is much lower than “It’s cheap and more resilient to climate change.
the social cost of inaction,” the report said. This is a major development priority as it saves
The report also highlighted the technical lives.
problems of supplying power in often remote Stark inequalities in accessing reliable elec-
areas. tricity in healthcare facilities emerge when
Centralised grid extension has long served as comparing different countries based on income,
the go-to strategy for expanding energy access. facility type, and location.
But this approach often falls short when trying
to reach rural and remote regions of low-income Power is development
countries due to the distance the grid needs to Generally, facilities in low-income countries
expand to reach the populations living in the have less access to reliable electricity than those
farthest reaches of a country and its central grid. in lower-middle-income countries. Sub-Saharan
Technological advances and price drops in Africa and South Asia have the lowest rates of
renewables, especially solar, have triggered a electrification, followed by the Pacific and East
rethink of the grid-based approach. Instead, the Asia regions.
report found decentralized sustainable energy Low rates of medical facility electrification
solutions are often “the most technically and are often symptoms of a wider lack of develop-
economically viable solution” to reach people ment of energy infrastructure. In South Sudan,
living in areas with challenging terrain for tradi- for example, overall energy access – let alone
tional infrastructural expansion. that for medical facilities – was estimated at just
Indeed, there can be “no excuses” for not 7.24% nationally.
making progress on increasing access to decen- Until the electrification gap can be bridged,
tralised, sustainable energy sources given the one eighth of the world’s population, equal to
availability and affordability of these technolo- the populations of the United States, Pakistan,
gies, said WHO’s Neira. Indonesia and Germany combined, remain in a
“No need to wait for the grid. IRENA has medical deserts.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 03 17•January•2023