Barriers to Electrification for "Under Grid" Households in Rural Kenya

Kenneth Lee, Eric Brewer, Carson Christiano, Francis Meyo, Edward Miguel, Matthew Podolsky, Javier Rosa and Catherine Wolfram

No 20327, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In Sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million people live without electricity. Despite ambitions of governments and donors to invest in rural electrification, decisions about how to extend electricity access are being made in the absence of rigorous evidence. Using a novel dataset of 20,000 geo-tagged structures in rural Western Kenya, we provide descriptive evidence that electrification rates remain very low despite significant investments in grid infrastructure. This pattern holds across time and for both poor and relatively well-off households and businesses. We argue that if governments wish to leverage existing infrastructure and economies of scale, subsidies and new approaches to financing connections are necessary.

JEL-codes: O18 O55 Q01 Q41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-ene
Note: DEV EEE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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