The Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) sector holds immense potential to transform lives and economies across Africa and build a model that can be replicated in emerging economies around the globe.
But amidst a flurry of innovation, a crucial question remains unanswered: how do we measure the impact of these innovations?
The current landscape reveals a concerning lack of standardised metrics, with evaluations currently done on a case-by-case basis and measured specific to the individual technologies being deployed.
This lack of a unified framework leads to limited visibility for innovations and creates an artificial limit to the potential scale of its impact.
Under these conditions, different organisations might be developing similar solutions without realising it, leading to a duplication of efforts and wastage of valuable resources and time.
This fragmentation hinders our ability to gauge whether we are genuinely moving the needle on our key goals or spinning the wheels of progress and not overcoming the obstacle.
Collaboration leads to innovation
Innovation often struggles to secure funding due to the lack of clear metrics demonstrating its impact on long-term goals. Projects then get abandoned and new initiatives start from scratch instead of building on what came before.
Investors need a standardised framework to assess the potential return on their investment, and to leverage the benefit of network effects resulting from knowledge sharing.
Without this, the investment becomes inconsistent and sporadic, leaving many promising innovations struggling for support and floundering in isolation.
Deploying critical resources like the extended $300 million facility that the World Bank announced in February to support DRE and clean cooking initiatives can be sped up with this collaboration.
The sector needs to come together and define metrics that capture the true impact of innovation across various aspects, including environmental, social, and economic.
A consolidated theory of change and a shared understanding of the desired outcomes from innovation efforts are crucial.
This clarity will guide the development of confidence among stakeholders who will then have evidence that we are working towards the same goals.
Openly sharing data and learnings across the sector can prevent duplication and accelerate progress. Imagine a platform where successful innovations and their impact are documented and accessible to all.
This would not only foster collaboration but also facilitate knowledge sharing, accelerating progress, and preventing wasted resources.
Innovation needs patience
Investors often prioritise quick returns, making it difficult for long-term, innovative projects to secure funding. There is a need for Venture Capital (VC)-style funding, where investors tolerate calculated risks for potentially high rewards, to support early-stage innovations.
That’s where philanthropic funding from NGOs like GEAPP can have the biggest impact in smoothing the friction that limits the financing potential for innovation. Universities and innovators often have unrealistic expectations about funding and commercialisation pathways, leading to a misalignment of expectations.
Standardised metrics allow the technologists and innovators – who are product builders and not entrepreneurs – to create in alignment with a checklist that ensures regular and consistent reporting that aligns with the expectations of the funders.
The potential businesses that could emerge from the innovation could then be incubated by specialists who coach the technologist through that early start-up phase, before moving on to accelerators who can enable scale and commercialisation.
Collaboration between funders, innovators, governments, and NGOs is crucial to overcome challenges and accelerate progress.
The 2030 goal to connect 100 million Africans in the Eastern and Southern regions of the continent to clean and sustainable energy is getting closer, and patience is running out. International investors have already contributed 20% of the $5 billion to this aim and the pressure is on to deliver meaningful progress.
Hidden costs of innovation
Navigating the innovation landscape requires a unified approach, standardised metrics, and a spirit of collaboration.
Standards bodies that measure the impact of innovation must represent all stakeholder interests and interrogate the full costs of innovation. This will allow for better optimisation and cost reduction across the entire value chain.
By addressing these issues, we can ensure that our innovation efforts are not only impactful but also contribute to the broader goals of society.
We have evidence of the transformative capabilities of forward-leaning, renewable friendly national policies in Senegal and Ghana where an estimated 20,000 jobs will be created in the DRE sector by the end of the decade.
The DRE sector stands at a crossroads. Embracing standardised impact measurement is not just an option, it’s a necessity.
By collaborating to develop and implement this framework, we can unlock the true potential of innovation and create a more sustainable and equitable future for all.
About GEAPP
The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) is an alliance of philanthropy, governments in emerging and developed economies, and technology, policy, and financing partners.
