While a reliable and affordable energy supply is vital for people living in rural Africa to power their homes and businesses, energy access alone is not enough to transform economies. Rural energy programmes need to consider the social and economic context for each local area and build partnerships that give people access to finance, technology and markets.
Supported by the IKEA Foundation and UK aid, and delivered by the Carbon Trust and Energy 4 Impact, Powering Renewable Energy Opportunities (PREO) programme is designed to stimulate energy demand in rural Africa. It does this by supporting renewable energy programmes that are tailored to local contexts, and, in doing so, aims to create 3,500 jobs, empowering 1,000 women and benefiting more than 11,000 rural households.
PREO supports well-designed programmes to succeed, encouraging partnership working and unlocking more investment in energy access.
PREO provides several core offerings including:
- grant support to 20 – 30 Action Learning Projects
- partnership building services to bring various actors together for specific projects and programmes
- enabling support to actors executing PUE-related initiatives and enterprise development in the form of a Technical Assistance facility
- undertaking a series of strategic market intelligence activities
- a Knowledge Hub that will act as a knowledge repository and promoter.
Visit the PREO programme website
PREO is part of TEA programme.
Related news: The Carbon Trust awarded €5 million IKEA Foundation funding to realise the potential of energy access in sub-Saharan Africa
