Measurement and estimation of off-grid solar, hydro and biogas energy

Abstract

In many countries, the production of off-grid electricity from renewables is largely unrecorded, but is believed to be expanding rapidly. This trend has been driven by numerous factors, including falling costs, innovation and supportive public policies.

Many of the new electricity producers are households and enterprises generating electricity for their own use and measuring this production is nearly always more difficult than collecting data from power plants supplying the grid. This report explains how IRENA approached the challenges of data collection and the methodologies used to produce the estimates of off-grid energy production and use. A brief overview of the data collected, followed by detailed tables of the off-grid data by country, technology and year is provided.