Off-Grid Solar Forum & Expo Blog

By Carolina Barreto , Energy Access Director, Tetra Tech Ryan Kilpatrick , Communications Director, Tetra Tech Meg Dallett , Communications Principal, Tetra Tech We can see it coming. Like an autonomous vehicle, self-driving toward us at high speed, ready to use technology and programming to make a critical decision: Stop? Swerve? Keep going? What’s coming is the moment we stop talking about “on-grid” versus “off-grid” and start talking about energy access and how our work intersects with climate change, social justice, and future trends. Are we ready to put our own tech and programming to the test?  Image: Baobab+ Shifting Our Approach We’re moving toward a holistic approach to energy access, where on-grid and off-grid meet. Off-grid used to be a tiny sector; now it’s a mature industry that has lessons to share with traditional utilities. Companies supporting off-grid customers in Africa and Asia now offer remote utility monitoring services to fire-risk areas like California. Off-gr

By the Efficiency for Access team Image: SunCulture Global weather patterns continue to be increasingly unpredictable, and the urgency of climate change adaptation and resilience accelerates to safeguard livelihoods and sustainable development. Regionally, The Global Drought Observatory (GDO) estimates that in East Africa, 70 million people are exposed to some level of drought risk. Further, the region also has a sizeable unelectrified population, 2020 World Bank estimates found that only 48% of the region's population has access to electricity. With this backdrop, productive use of renewable energy (PURE) technologies offer essential adaptive and mitigative technologies and provide access to critical energy services. For example, in the case of agriculture – one of the areas of focus for Efficiency for Access interventions – affordable, inclusive, energy-efficient, solar-powered technologies like water pumps, mills, and cold storage solutions can strengthen productivity and effic