1.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
Productive Uses of Energy Roundtable, Dar Es Salaam, 20th May 2016
Sarah Best and Ben Garside, International Institute for Environment and
Development (IIED) in collaboration with HIVOS and the Energy Change Lab
Remote but productive:
How can Tanzania make the most of new mini-grid and
other energy access investments to catalyse local
enterprises, jobs and incomes in poor rural communities?

2.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
Why productive uses of
energy (PUE)?

3.
Sarah Best

4.
Sarah BestWhat does global practice guidance
recommend?
1. Assessment and
planning
2. Promotional activities
with customers and
communities
3. Strengthen the
enabling environment

5.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
Examples of PUE in Tanzania mini-
hydro – CEFA and ACRA
Matembwe Village
Company (MVC) Ltd
LUMAMA

6.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
Assessments & Support Measures
What types of PUE
interventions do CEFA, ACRA
and their partners use?

7.
Sarah Best
PUE assessment?
• Partial
• CEFA: food security driver
• ACRA: business opportunity assessment
• New phases: socio-economic baseline assessments
• Opportunity for more in-depth analysis to pinpoint best
options for catalysing PUE

8.
Sarah Best1. Community awareness-raising
and engagement
• Preparing the
community
• Environmental and
safety issues
• Involving users in
utility governance
• Providing information
on PUE opportunities

9.
Sarah Best
2. Establishing new, utility-owned
agro-processing enterprises – MVC

10.
Sarah Best3. Funding new enterprises to buy end-
use equipment – ACRA & LUMAMA

11.
Sarah Best4. Electricity purchase rights to incentivise
low-price electric milling services
• Goal = improve affordability
of milling services &
regulate power use
• Business person applies to
user committee
• Receives equipment advice
& installation cost support
• Electric milling price lower
than diesel equivalent

12.
Sarah Best5. Capacity building and skills
development
• Learning by doing
(staff/community
members in NGO
projects, utilities)
• Inspiration by
demonstration

13.
Sarah Best6. Supporting agricultural livelihoods
for conservation and buy-in

14.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
What are the impacts
and challenges?

15.
Sarah Best
Impacts Challenges
• Household (building
upgrades, gender, food
security, affordability)
• Significant PUE impacts
(MSMEs in retail services,
milling, agro-forestry)
• Increasing economic
viability of service e.g.
LUMAMA breakeven 2015
• User access to finance
(e.g. SACCOs)
• Business skills & business
development services
• Women-run enterprises
• Balancing affordability with
long-term economic
sustainability of service

16.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
What are the key
issues and learnings

17.
Sarah Best
Issue 1: Integrated approaches
Combining energy with an integrated rural livelihoods approach
can increase local impacts, but also create challenges
 Investing in awareness-raising and capacity building done by
the right organisations is critical
 Support for local enterprises need to be targeted, informed
by a robust PUE assessment and good practice guidance

18.
Sarah Best
Issue 2: Time and money
It takes time and money to promote PUE to low-income and
marginalised groups, beyond many project and investor
timeframes
 Successful PUE interventions need to be properly budgeted
and funded e.g. through grants and ‘patient’ capital
 Partnerships and collaborations could help to scale-up
impacts

19.
Sarah Best
Issue 3: Enabling environment
Tanzania has a supportive enabling environment for energy
access, but there needs to be more clarity on specific ‘enabling’
measures to accelerate PUE
 Increased cross-sector co-ordination could promote more
integrated approaches to energy access and rural
development
 New mini-grid support services, such as SREP, create an
opportunity to foster learning and experimentation around
PUE

20.
Sarah Best
What is your experience?
1. What are the barriers to improving productive uses of energy in
rural areas?
2. On the ground, what innovations in the ‘delivery model’ (or
‘business models’) could help stimulate productive uses of
energy?
3. What are the needs and opportunities to improve the wider
enabling environment to support energy providers and
stakeholders?

21.
Sarah Best
Next Steps for Energy Change Lab
1. Finalise and publish research findings, incorporating feedback
on the draft paper from this roundtable
2. Design programme to support developers and other
stakeholders learn and test out different approaches to PUE
stimulation, potentially leading to sector-specific guidelines.
3. Further consultation on programme design with stakeholders
to understand needs, incentives, barriers and priority outputs.

22.
Sarah Best
Author name
Date
Sarah Best
Sarah Best sarah.best@iied.org
Ben Garside ben.garside@iied.org
Sisty Basil stiba7@gmail.com
Maimuna Kabatesi mkabatesi@hivos.org
Eco Matser ematser@hivos.org
Thank you

23.
Sarah Best
Question 1: Barriers
What are the barriers to improving productive uses of energy in
rural areas? E.g.
• Policy and Institutions
• Finance
• Capacity and Knowledge
• Social
• Technical
Groups:
A) Energy provider
B) Community
C) Government Agencies

24.
Sarah Best
Question 2: On-the-ground Innovation
On the ground, what innovations in the ‘delivery model’ (or
business model) could help stimulate productive uses of
energy?
E.g.
• Multi-stakeholder collaboration
• Targeted enterprise support
• Payment and financing schemes
• Rural livelihoods approach
• Etc
• Etc

25.
Sarah Best
Question 3: Enabling Environment
What are the needs and opportunities to improve the wider
enabling environment to support energy providers and
stakeholders? E.g.
• Advisory services
• PUE toolkit
• Funding
• Cross-ministry collaboration
• Etc
• etc