Researchers Use Night-time Satellite Images To Map Access to Electricity In Sub-Saharan Africa

A team of researchers from the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Future Energy Program at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Italy analysed the precision with which satellite images showing night-time lights could be converted into spatially detailed maps of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa.

The research validates a growing recognition of the potential gains of using satellite data to assess the availability of electricity across a large geographical area.

The researchers focused on sub-Saharan Africa, where a dearth of accurate data and data collation systems are impeding a more holistic approach to solving the energy deficit in the region. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the largest electricity access deficit in the world, with nine out of ten people living without electricity.

Existing data on electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa provide a shallow insight into the energy situation in the region, thereby making it difficult to track progress and make plans for expanding electricity infrastructure. In essence, it’s more difficult to prioritize financial support due to limited knowledge of the situation.

In their study published in the journal Scientific Data, the researchers made a case for leveraging spatially detailed maps of electricity access to address the energy deficit in the region, with a view to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7).

“They further investigated whether remotely-sensed data on light intensity could provide a proxy for electricity access quality beyond a binary measure of access, and if it could help to identify regions that lack access to electricity, as well as hotspots where progress in terms of providing access is stalled or regressing”, according to a synopsis of the research which was released to the media.

The team’s satellite-derived dataset was able to provide an accurate prediction of not only where people have access to electricity and where they don’t, but their measure of light intensity, which could also provide an accurate proxy for the amount of residential electricity consumption in a particular area.

Commenting on the research, Giacomo Falchetta, a researcher at FEEM and lead author of the study, said: “We were able to use our derived indicators to track, within each country, what progress with electricity access has been over the last five years, and where critical hotspots of people without access or high latent electricity remain. The results revealed large inequalities in progress towards universal access to electricity, both across and within nations in the region.”

“Our dataset provides a useful complement that is easily updatable and can help assess progress with providing electricity access, as well as inequalities in electricity use at a fine sub-national scale. This could be an invaluable input to efforts aimed at meeting SDG 7,” explains Shonali Pachauri, a co-author of the study and a researcher with the IIASA Energy Program.

The dataset and research paper are available for academia, policymakers, development organisations and developers to make good use of.

Read the original synopsis of the research on IIASA website to learn more about the research and how to access the dataset.

Allan Okoth said 'This is an interesting and useful utilization of space satellite capacity. The same approach is being used in discerning economic vitality of various regional technology conurbations. Notice the brightness in the Southern Africa area that denotes company and start-up clustering. There is also significant presence along the western Africa coast (attributable to Nigeria and Ghana), East Africa (attributable to Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda) and in North Africa (attributable to very dynamic Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt)'

https://africanews.space/researchers-use-night-time-satellite-images-map-electricity-access-in-sub-saharan-africa/

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It is not new.

Lagos is even better due to access to generator as main supply point

The light seen from southern Nigeria is nothing but gas flaring


Fly into the Niger Delta Area from 8pm downwards you will see how that region is literally on fire

Nigeria na generator lights dey show, not national power supply. Chai, who do Africa this curse, who we offend, see as everywhere black like charcoal. African governments leaders are so incompetent. The only thing they are very good at is how to steal money and be forming big gods to disease ridden slay mamas with borehole between their legs

See America at night below, see difference my God, yet this African people go dey form religion. Winch people

Amuocha:
It is not new.

Lagos is even better due to access to generator as main supply point

nah only lag dem dey use generator abi

Leemao

Yẹ̀yẹ researchers with stupid job... Any research that will not contribute to the electricity generation is not welcomed here.
You wan see the darkest part of Africa come dey do mapping, instead of you to go to okokomaiko

As much as I appreciate the technological prowess used in carrying out this light/darkness research, I believe it's not even up to 70% accurate because generators /inverters etc made up to 50% of what they came up with at night in Africa. A closer look at the night vision map portray the developing nations especially Southern and Nothern Africa with the Central countries begging for life.

All in all, this context cannot change in the next 50 years when the world is fast moving and one country still electing a man who prefer cows to human development.


I dey wonder how living in this red traced region dey live

No one curse Africa, we are our greatest undoing.

Africa is black

So Africa na darkness itself

In other words, their is no light in Africa, judging by that street light


African is doomed

I can only see 5 street lights in Nigerian

Maybe generator

that dark part naa Nigeria

deepwater:
The light from southern Nigeria is nothing but gas flaring

how many gas flaring points do you have per company

Southy enough power

Compare Southern/Northern Africa to the rest of Africa!!

E be like say na only 7 people get light for Madagascar

Na wa o


Africa no get light o...

Don't be deceived.
The lights you guys are seeing on Nigeria area are due to generators. These researchers shouldn't classify us as a country with access to electricity

Blue earth.

How I wish I could view the earth from international space...

deepwater:
The light seen from southern Nigeria is nothing but gas flaring


Fly into the Niger Delta Area from 8pm downwards you will see how that region is literally on fire

But the nnpc MD will come from the desert north


So will the oil well owners. Who have never seen crude oil before

So they don't care about the environment

Fccked up country

Despite the fact that institutions of learning keep on increasing in number by the day, we still not up to date.

Oo Africans, who do us this thing?

If there's anything I agree with now it is simple - without boots on the ground, all those satellite scoping would be a total waste of time.

First, what is electricity access? The absence of tangible benchmarks to define and articulate access means that its definition is subjective. Many households still use coal/firewood to cook but have solar home systems (SHS). So you see the house lit up but yet the dwellers cant power their cookers or heat water or do something profitable with the 'access' they have. More worrisome is the fact that these households spend more money in meeting their energy needs and also stand a high chance of contracting COPD.

Second, to what extent can these so called SHS guarantee households mobility - the ability to upscale electricity consumption cheaply. So I have a solar system that basically powers my light bulbs and entertainment system, what happens when I want to buy a new fridge? How cheaply can I increase my ownership of electrical appliances.

I wont be surprised to see folks sneer at how illogical these may seem but hey how many of you connected to the grid have called the utility to inform them that you are getting an AC or a deep freezer? You dont because you have the belief that the system can carry it. Of course it can because of something called generation expansion planning. If it is done for grid connected households then the same courtesy must be extended off grid households.

I really pity Africa (especially SSA). By the time the developed world is done with her, she would wish death on herself. How a people can allow the developed world determine how she should electrify herself is not only an insult but also a means of colonization. IIASA is there talking about electricity access in SSA, how many of them even understand what it means to live 25 years and only have had electricity for 15 years? The other clowns like UNFCCC and IRENS and IEA are talking hogwash about renewable when fossil fuels like natural gas and coal still constitute the bulk of their generation capacity.

What is even more worrisome is the growing rate of ignorance now common among youths. Is humanity mad? Have we become so dull? You are shouting climate change and still using clothes, cars, aeroplanes and electricity all powered fully by fossils, how much more ignorant can we be?

Wo, let me go and find something to eat jare. Nonsense talk about electricity access from people who may never have experienced electricity blackouts.

Backward continent

Africa is gone!!! So with this wack light we have, we are still better than most of Africa?? Only South Africa and Morocco are better. Damn!!!

But Nigeria try sha o. For those who can locate Nigeria from the map

K

vanjos:
Despite the fact that institutions of learning keep on increasing in number by the day, we still not up to date.

Oo Africans, who do us this thing?

u cant outdo ur destiny

Chiefochiefo:
But Nigeria try sha o. For those who can locate Nigeria from the map

Generator