Data for Development (D4D)

Through the Beyond the Grid Fund for Zambia contribution funded by the Swedish Embassy in Lusaka, the implementing partner Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) and Sweden have established a first version of a data platform that provides real-time, unique and detailed data on energy use and financial transactions involving more than 150,000 customers living beyond the reach of the national electricity grid - the system is called Energy Data on Off-grid Energy Networks System (Edison). The EDISON software platform handles automated data collection, storage, access, analysis and visualization to verify the installation and use of solar systems under BGFZ's performance-based financing mechanism. Analyses based on EDISON also feed into the dialogue platform established by the Ministry of Energy in Zambia that brings together Zambian authorities, donors, development banks and energy services companies in Zambia.An expansion of the results-based financing mechanism tested in Zambia is now applied in the new contribution Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa, where the Nordic Environment Financing Corporation is the agreement partner. This will provide the opportunity to collect similar data in Burkina Faso, Liberia and Mozambique reaching an additional 1 to 3 million customers. At the same time, a number of additional public and private stakeholders with activities linked to the "off-grid" sector have shown great interest in collaborating around Edison in collecting, processing, storing, analyzing and visualizing data in the context of other off-grid programs and financing mechanisms and thereby increase the amount of data available for analysis. In November 2019, the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi hosted a roundtable to explore, together with a number of stakeholders, opportunities for collaboration between actors who collect and use big data for development purposes and interest in further developing and making EDISON available as a tool for more stakeholders to use and collaborate around.REEEP has subsequently submitted an application amounting to 5 MSEK for support, in collaboration with, among others, the Africa Mini-Grids Develompent Association (AMDA), the Global Off Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Sustainable Energy for All, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Energy Sector Managment Assisance Program at the World Bank (ESMAP), The Global Energy Data Commons (GEDC), to further develop and make EDISON available to a wider group of stakeholders.REEEP has applied to Sida for funding of 476 316 EUR to carry out the "Edison II - Building and integrated energy data ecosystem for Africa" during the period 2020-2021. The intervention aims at further develop the data collection, storage and analysis platform, EDISON, to make it available for use by a broader range of actors by 1) harmonising data and KPIs of key stakeholders for household solar energy systems and mini-grid solutions for inclusion in specifications of EDISON II and development of a proof-of-concept investment instrument suitable for emerging economies with tranched risk tiers and associated returns; 2) Development, launch and testing of EDISON II energy monitoring and analytics platform and 3) Discussion and documentation of Global Energy Data Commons infrastructure; proposal-writing and fundraising for Energy Data Roadmap for Africa (incl. side-event at SEforAll Forum 2020); facilitation of standardized dataset development for SDG7 tracking.