Speeding the Energy Transition

Energy Overview

Electricity access is the most impactful catalyst for opportunity and development, with income and energy consumption tightly correlated on every continent. And yet, estimates suggest that more than three-quarters of all emissions globally come from the energy sector. For nearly 15 years, the Foundation has worked at the intersection of both challenges—bringing renewable energy to those who lack steady power while also pushing to reduce emissions. Since no one organization will solve this, we have worked alongside diverse partners to test new ideas, learn, and adapt together.

Our Big Bet on Energy:

Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP)

In 2021, we made the biggest bet in our history, investing $500 million to create and launch the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), along with the Ikea Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund, as a platform of partners to accelerate the speed and scale of renewable energy transition in low- and middle-income countries. GEAPP’s ambition by 2030 is to avert four gigatons of carbon emissions, provide 1 billion people with new or improved energy connections, and create 150 million sustainable jobs and livelihoods.

India

GEAPP partnered with local government, regulators, and donors to create a strong regulatory environment and business case for increasing deployment of distributed renewable energy (DRE) solutions as well as battery energy storage systems (BESS). GEAPP’s support for state government DRE programs helped accelerate the roll-out of almost ~1GW of tenders for DREs for productive uses in the states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. GEAPPs support for India’s first commercial-scale BESS project reached regulatory approval and is set to achieve a 50% tariff reduction with a 30% equity stake from a major commercial investor.

Nigeria

On the supply side, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) has used bulk Demand Aggregation for Renewable Technology (DART) program procurement arrangements to cut costs for has used bulk Renewable Energy hardware to suppliers—which in turn lowers the cost of energy to consumers—generating an average cost reduction of 4% for solar purchasing, 23% for battery energy systems and of 29% for procurement arrangements to cut costs for meters. Distributed Renewable Energy hardware to suppliers—which in turn lowers the cost of energy to consumers—generating an average cost reduction of 4% for solar panels, 23% for battery energy systems and of 29% for smart meters.

On the demand side, The Productive Use Financing Facility (PUFF) and Energizing Agriculture Programme (EAP) work together to provide access to productive use appliances and profitable business models using DRE so that small business owners—and especially women entrepreneurs—can improve their economic output by moving up the energy use ladder. Since 2023, the PUFF has enabled the sale of 8,000 appliances, and EAP has deployed 20 pilots across the country.

The Foundation is also helping create new alliances and coalitions to coordinate and mobilize high-impact solutions. Throughout 2023, the Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund cohosted a series of convenings, culminating in a report on the future of Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETPs), designed to help countries plot their move away from fossil-fuel dependency. Beyond the four that now have JETPs—South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal—the series identified the need to transform JETPs into “country platforms” to improve the translation of political commitments to investment dollars in real projects.

Energy Results

GEAPP's Transformational Numbers

43megawatts
of power installed
722mini-grids
and 902 commercial and industrial solar systems deployed
$1.07billion
direct investment and indirect investments mobilized through GEAPP

FEATURED IMPACT STORIES

Sierra Leone's Women Leaders in Renewable Energy

The Solar Harnessed Entrepreneurs (SHE) Project is aimed at developing and expanding profitable renewable energy-enabled businesses for women through financing, capacity building, and enhanced market access.

Flagship Project Combines Women Empowerment and Climate Justice

Hawa Jalloh received a solar-powered freezer through the SHE initiative, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, GEAPP, and Care Sierra Leone. She is one of 6,000 women in 23 mini-grid communities in Sierra Leone benefiting from this project to boost incomes with renewable energy.

Read the grantee impact story

GEAPP is just one way that the Foundation is supporting accelerating energy transitions globally.

The Foundation is helping improve market economics of fossil fuel displacement and clean energy projects in LMICs.

The Foundation is testing the creation of a novel transaction structure to facilitate the early retirement of coal plants in emerging markets while encouraging clean energy expansion and supporting a just transition for impacted workers and communities. The transaction would cover the cost of replacing assets with renewable energy, transitioning workers and communities, and compensating for lost revenues from power contracts. The Coal to Clean Credits Initiative (CCCI) developed the first-in-market transition credits in partnership with South Pole, RMI, and VERRA and is assessing the early retirement of 246MW coal plant in the Philippines in partnership with ACEN, a local asset owner. Early findings from the assessment found a possible route to retiring the plant 10 years early by utilizing transition credits and that doing so could avert up to 19 million tons of CO2 emissions.

Africans are basically rendered invisible in their own policy discussions. We have to end this unworkable status quo. African research and expertise are not optional.
Rose Mutiso
Research Director
Energy for Growth Hub

We are helping advance new high-impact energy technologies, such as Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) to leapfrog the energy transition.

Beyond testing new innovative ways to finance energy transitions, widespread renewable electrification will require dramatic new solutions. Core to the Foundation’s mission is the use of its convening power to support the widescale advancement of these solutions. The Global Leadership Council (GLC) launched the BESS Consortium, a partnership designed to galvanize the transformation of energy systems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean via expanded deployment of battery energy storage systems. To date, the BESS Consortium has secured commitments from 15 LMICs to advance 19 BESS projects in their existing pipeline, totaling a collective BESS capacity of 1.2GW with support from 18 resource partners, including all major multilateral banks and leading experts such as RMI and NREL.

Now is the time to act. BESS brings together partners spanning development, technology, and finance to improve access to technology, finance, research, and innovation. Bringing these things together is important in creating the ecosystem necessary for the energy transition.
The Honorable Mia Mottley
Prime Minister of Barbados

On Reflection

Lessons Learned from our Energy Work

The size of the energy transition requires convening and catalyzing partners—public, private, philanthropic, and others—at a scale that has few peacetime precedents. Whether as formal members of GEAPP or outside it, the Foundation has to work with a greater number of partners, across a range of sectors, and at different levels—community, province, national, and global—than perhaps we ever have.

As we seek to continue to accelerate energy transitions—and work more broadly in the climate area—we will apply several lessons, including the following.

Alliances require structure and continuous alignment. GEAPP is an alliance with more than 50 partners, working on more than 130 projects, in around 40 countries. Rallying a diverse set of stakeholders each with their own perspectives, goals and definitions of success around a collective vision poses challenges. We are working to align priorities, implementation approaches, and consistent communication so that everyone understands their roles and is empowered to implement.

New institutions take time and support. Building a new entity at the scale and speed of GEAPP is challenging, and we have learned much along the way about how to nurture the Alliance. We need to bring more comprehensive support—program support, capital mobilization, legal, finance, and communications—and ensure leadership to support this big bet.

Measuring systems change is a challenge on its own. Measurement and management of impact is happening at the individual investments level, which maintains a high level of accountability for the impact of those investments. At the same time, GEAPP and its partners are working together to achieve broader systems transformation goals. For any grantmaker, it is important to strike the right balance between accountability for investment impact and contribution to broader energy system transformation.

Build talent locally. We need to invest in human capital; inspiring, training, and investing in emerging leaders in nascent industries to not only ensure success today but the talent pipeline and local leadership essential to enabling future economic growth and development. Our stakeholders, beneficiaries, and partners consistently raised the need to leverage and build embedded, local expertise that provides critical context and long-term buy-in.

Think beyond grants. Philanthropy can have a great deal of impact when we look beyond traditional grant capital, especially by catalyzing the private sector. We must continue testing blended finance models, direct equity investments, and local currency financing platforms to demonstrate the potential for philanthropic capital to derisk investment and crowd in private capital over time.

Achieving gender equity requires intention. Women are underrepresented in energy jobs and are, on average, paid 20% less than their male counter parts. Through GEAPP’s work with Shortlist to support the placement of women in green energy jobs, we have seen that hiring and technical assistance interventions for energy employers can significantly increase women’s earnings to 95% of their male counterparts, but over time these earnings begin to drop as men receive promotions and raises at a higher rate. Gender equity engagement with employers works, but lasting and sustainable equity will require persistence.

Jump to Other Chapters

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Food

Strengthening Food Systems

In much of the world, the food we eat is increasing human health risks, while our methods for growing that food are harming the planet. Climate change is also making it harder for many to find the food they need to live and thrive. The Foundation is working on multiple fronts to ensure the world grows, produces, and eats “Good Food,” which benefits people and planet alike.

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Health

Boosting the Health of Hard-Pressed Communities

In 2023, the world largely moved on from Covid-19, even if the virus still affected many. For the Foundation’s health team, this transition played out in our daily work as we shifted our focus more to the health threats of climate change. We wound down our Covid-19 projects while seeking to apply many of the tools and lessons learned to this new body of work.

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Finance

Unlocking Finance for the People We Serve

The world has many solutions to help transform the energy, food, and health systems—but only additional capital can provide the access and scale necessary. In 2023, the Foundation’s Finance team worked to close the global climate financing gap—which stands annually at $3.5 trillion—by working to tap private and public sources while also seeking to ensure that important legislative action helps families and communities adapt and prosper.