Sustainable development impacts of nationally determined contributions: assessing the case of mini-grids in Kenya

Abstract

As of today, access to electricity is still unavailable to 1.1 billion people in the world, half of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Projections suggest that this share will increase, leaving millions of people with limited development prospects. Kenya's nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the 2015 Paris Agreement includes a commitment to expand power supply, and in doing so, provide all its citizens with access to electricity. Access in rural areas, where the majority remains unconnected, is planned to be reached through different technologies. These include mini-grids, which are expected to bring multiple sustainable development benefits. However, comprehensive studies looking at synergies and trade-offs between environmental, social, and economic impacts of mini-grids are scarce. Analyzing the expected contribution of mini-grids to targets such as the NDC and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can provide evidence-based decision-support to policymakers, thus promoting well-designed and sustainable rural electrification policies. By using the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) Sustainable Development Methodology, this paper goes beyond the calculation of greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts resulting from access to modern electricity, analyzing also other environmental and socioeconomic implications of 146 solar PV mini grids under construction in Kenya. Using specific targets from the SDG framework, the paper presents a combined qualitative and quantitative analysis of the extent to which mini-grids can contribute to the implementation of Kenya's NDC and to sustainable development priorities. Key policy insights • The deployment of mini-grids is expected to lower the GHG emissions of the villages currently without access to electricity by 71%. • This contributes to 0.4% of the current NDC target for the power sector, in line with the capacity of the systems analyzed. • This action is expected to also bring about positive impacts on electricity access, indoor air quality, healthcare, education and economic activities, which are found to contribute to 16 SDG targets. • Apart from the economic investment required, possible negative impacts are associated with the electronic waste generated at the end-of-life of the mini-grids. • Accounting for sustainable development impacts of policies can increase support among policymakers for climate action, and ultimately raise ambition.

The Power of Electricity: How Effective Is It in Promoting Sustainable Development in Rural Off-Grid Islands in the Philippines?

“…The sustainability of electrification systems and technologies have been extensively studied in literature with sustainability indices already developed [40][41][42]. However, the impact of electrification systems to SD, especially from the end-users' perspective, has not been significantly explored, although analysis has been done for mini-grids in Kenya [43], renewable energy implementation in sub-Saharan Africa [44], and small-scale hydropower projects in India [45]. Thus, the development of an assessment framework for SD impacts follows closely the approaches for sustainability assessment as sustainable development is seen to be a pathway towards sustainability [46].…”

A framework for national scenarios with varying emission reductions

“…There have been a few attempts to collect national scenarios such as in the Linking Climate and Development Policies-Leveraging International Networks and Knowledge Sharing project (CD-LINKS 21,22 , which also includes individual national scenarios [23][24][25][26][27][28][29] ), the Climate Policy Assessment and Mitigation Modeling to Integrate National and Global Transition Pathways (COMMIT; https://themasites.pbl.nl/commit/) 30 project and The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) 31,32 . Moreover, various studies have assessed NDC implications, from sectoral perspectives [33][34][35][36] to the broader context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals [37][38][39][40] . It should also be noted that many countries do not have publicly available national energy or emissions scenarios.…”