Access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa: the regressive effect of tariff structures on urban and rural on-grid households

Sandrine Michel () and Alexis Vessat ()
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Sandrine Michel: UMR ART-Dev - Acteurs, Ressources et Territoires dans le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UM - Université de Montpellier
Alexis Vessat: UMR ART-Dev - Acteurs, Ressources et Territoires dans le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UM - Université de Montpellier

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Abstract: In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the energy access gap between urban and rural populations remains considerable, even among households and businesses with potential access to the grid. As the interface between electricity generation conditions, the end user and public energy-access policy, tariff structures are the major instrument of access. This article evaluates how electricity tariff structures contribute to the continued existence of the energy access gap and looks at whether this gap is primarily between rural and urban populations. Using a dynamic panel model with random effects (1990-2012; 33 countries divided into 4 groups; 17 variables related to residential and non-residential consumption, production and share of income spent on electricity), the article shows the systematically regressive effect of electricity pricing on access to both residential and non-residential consumption. We find that electricity pricing fails to provide reduced rates that enable access to the poor, neglects households that have passed the threshold of the first consumption block and is ineffective at addressing energy poverty in both urban and rural households. For households to access a centralised power grid, we find that the criterion of location is less important than the economic conditions of the customers served.

Keywords: Power tariff structures; Electricity access; Urban on-grid access; Rural on-grid access; Rural electrification; Sub-saharan africa; JEL Q48; JEL I38; JEL N17; JEL O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-07-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-ene and nep-reg
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-04158100v1
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Published in The Journal of Energy and Development, 2023, 48 (1-2), pp.279-308

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