reduces the shelf-life of food and limits options for food transporting. The use of solid fuel for cooking is common due to costs, including costs of purchasing equipment, and/or lack of alternatives. In Kenya, solid fuels (e.g., firewood and charcoal) is the most common method for cooking. In Lebanon and Syria, where overlapping shocks is making fuel such as LPG scarce and limits purchasing power, some are forced to turn to solid fuel or resort to negative coping mechanisms such as mealskipping or undercooking food. 7. More time allocated to drudgery. Lack of access to reliable electricity increases the time allocated for drudgery for both women and men. This could include time spent on household chores such as washing and cooking or reacting to and compensating for load shedding and blackouts. While increased access to electricity might not reduce the overall time spent on household tasks, it frees up time that can be put towards more productive uses. A study from Zahle in Lebanon, for example, shows the positive effect of stabile access to electricity on responsibilities and workloads, particularly for women (Ahmad, AlMasri, et al., 2020). Impediments to successfully introducing new energy solutions 8. Low uptake of new technologies. Cultural norms are important determinants for peoples’ choices and behaviour. In terms of cooking, people might not want to cook using electricity, or know how. In Nairobi for example, there is a widespread cultural belief that coal is better for preparation of traditional meals.8 This could be a consumption pattern that is hard to decarbonise. Other barriers to switching to alternative solutions include perceived risk, distrust, or lack of knowledge of the technology. Furthermore, lack of trust between providers and consumers has been seen as an impediment to introducing new solutions, even when the cost or reliability of the service is comparable to or better than the option currently used. This is furthered by often limited opportunities for residents to participate in decision-making for energy provision. 9. Increase in demand for electricity. When people get better access to reliable electricity their needs change, and the demand for electricity increases. Unless new electricity solutions have the capacity to meet future energy demands, it does not have the same potential for transformative change, and in worst case will make the solution obsolete when the supplied energy no longer meets the need. 10. Solar solutions require high up-front investment, while financing options are limited and investment 8
risks high. Affordability and high up-front cost for solar solutions is a key barrier for people to invest in energy technology, particularly for poor and vulnerable households where other needs take priority. See Box 4.
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Energy at city and systems level (integration with response, reconstruction, and development efforts)
This section provides a summary of some of the main challenges identified for clean energy deployment at a city or systems scale, focused on city governance, value-chains, and service provision. City governance 11. Lack of shared understanding of energy access. Access to energy holds different meanings to different stakeholders, where central and local governments, private sector, international organisations, NGOs, and residents often have diverging perceptions of what adequate energy access means, for whom the needs are greatest, and how this can be addressed. This will influence the type of information generated on needs and gaps in provision, and in turn which solutions are promoted to increase energy access. For private sector actors, for example, how energy access will reinforce, or shift, power structures is often not a consideration. Examples have shown how private companies’ entry into the market has negatively affected women’s role due to a lack of sensitivity of how new solutions, and the mechanisms to provide these, are designed and implemented. 12. Multitude of actors involved and benefiting from current set-up. Actors supplying electricity from non-renewable sources will have strong interests in preserving the existing system and their position within it. Anchoring of solutions will need to account for and/or involve these entities. This is particularly the case in places where authorities have exclusive contracts with private partners, or where informal providers have de facto monopoly and control of the local markets (as for instance the neighbourhood profiling in Lebanon has shown). 13. Transmission and distribution networks are poor quality and overloaded. Structural deficiencies combined with limited financial, human, and technical resources are key barriers for quality and reliable public energy supply by local and central governments. Factors such as civil unrest, conflict, lack of planning, and added demand due to population influx put additional strain on already pressured systems.
Confirmed in our Nairobi survey.
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