As part of ongoing efforts to bring electricity to every household and business in Myanmar, Smart Power Myanmar, a national platform with a mandate to advance a modern energy ecosystem, released a comprehensive Market Assessment that for the first time sheds light on the potential for distributed energy solutions in Myanmar, and helps identify key recommendations for investors, developers, development agencies and policymakers to accelerate access to energy and the means to use it productively.
Only 42 percent of households in Myanmar are currently connected to the electricity grid, and Smart Power Myanmar’s market assessment demonstrates that solutions such as mini-grids can play a crucial role in bringing reliable power to off-grid households and businesses in Myanmar while grid electrification progresses. The report recommends five key measures that when combined could trigger in the short term a potential market of up to 2,300 mini-grids covering approximately 2 million people.
“The report presents new evidence on the market size of the mini-grid sector in Myanmar backed up with robust financial analysis of mini-grid models and cost per connection, and highlights the geographies with the highest potential for the roll-out of mini-grids,” said Pariphan Uawithya, Associate Director for The Rockefeller Foundation’s Power Initiative. “The report is helping the government to reimagine how the on-grid and mini-grid sectors can be integrated to accelerate rural electrification and is informing donors’ future investment plans.”
Smart Power Myanmar’s Founding Members include The Rockefeller Foundation, The World Bank, USAID, and Yoma Strategic Holdings. Smart Power Myanmar today is managed by Pact and financed by The Rockefeller Foundation, which has a dedicated focus on ending energy poverty and improving livelihoods by leveraging breakthroughs in data science and decentralized energy to both accelerate the pace of electrification and dramatically decrease the cost. This Market Assessment was co-financed by The Agence Française de Développement and The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
Find out more in the full report above.