Taxis provide an important market for electric vehicles (EVs), but long charging durations and limited charger availability have prevented rapid adoption. Leveraging over two weeks of high-resolution GPS and battery data from almost 20,000 EVs in the all-electric Shenzhen taxi fleet, we analyze the potential to improve fleet-wide operations by optimizing both the location and timing of vehicle charging. We construct machine learning models to predict travel time, queuing time at charging stations, and charge consumption by time of day. Contrary to the emphasis on charging station siting in the literature, we find that optimizing charging locations would have a relatively limited impact. Instead, providing drivers with better real-time information about queuing times at charging stations, and enabling flexibility in battery charge during shift changes could reduce down-time per vehicle by over 30 minutes per day, while increasing the number of economically viable charging stations by over 50%. Moreover, taking full advantage of break periods and nighttime to charge could reduce downtime per vehicle by over one hour per day, reducing revenue losses due to charging by roughly 90%. These results are verified with evidence from real-time charging station data and driver shift-change data. Policy recommendations from this study include establishing citywide open data platforms to integrate real-time data on vehicle trajectory, battery charge, and charger availability, and providing drivers and companies with training on best charging practices. As a number of cities worldwide move toward fully electrified taxi fleets, this analysis has large-scale implications for decarbonized, cleaner urban areas.

Millions of people have limited or no access to electrical energy. A diverse group of scholars and activists, from individual researchers to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations, UN, and increasingly to engineering and financial private sector firms, have been working on initiatives to address this issue, which is considered by many a human rights problem. Energy access is not only a challenge for developing economies but is also equally important for service to remote areas such as the Arctic, islands, and communities distant from the grid. Several governments and private institutions, as well as nongovernment organizations around the world, are now funding projects and a variety of initiatives to help impoverished communities, especially across Africa and remote regions, develop clean and sustainable energy systems. The IEEE is actively involved in addressing energy access issues through several initiatives, such as the Smart Village program, focusing on “integrating sustainable electricity, education, and entrepreneurial solutions to empower off-grid communities” (http://ieee-smart-village.org/). In this special issue, we concentrate on highlighting the current state of knowledge associated with strategies for bringing clean, affordable, and sustainable electricity service reliably to energy-limited communities, based on local renewable energy (RE) sources and storage systems. Sociopolitical and economic forces as well as inclusionary and exclusionary culture or practices that often define the technical approaches and solutions offer opportunities for progress on this important problem.

Power systems have evolved following a century-old paradigm of planning and operating a grid based on large central generation plants connected to load centers through a transmission grid and distribution lines with radial flows. This paradigm is being challenged by the development and diffusion of modular generation and storage technologies. We use a novel approach to assess the sequencing and pacing of centralized, distributed, and off-grid electrification strategies by developing and employing the grid and access planning (GAP) model. GAP is a capacity expansion model to jointly assess operation and investment in utility-scale generation, transmission, distribution, and demand-side resources. This paper conceptually studies the investment and operation decisions for a power system with and without distributed resources. Contrary to the current practice, we find hybrid systems that pair grid connections with distributed energy resources (DERs) are the preferred mode of electricity supply for greenfield expansion under conservative reductions in photovoltaic panel (PV) and energy storage prices. We also find that when distributed PV and storage are employed in power system expansion, there are savings of 15%-20% mostly in capital deferment and reduced diesel use. Results show that enhanced financing mechanisms for DER PV and storage could enable 50%-60% of additional deployment and save 15 $/MWh in system costs. These results have important implications to reform current utility business models in developed power systems and to guide the development of electrification strategies in underdeveloped grids.

Increased sensing and data collection in electric power systems from utility to minigrid to individual household scale are resulting in an explosion of data collection about users and providers of electricity services. In the push to expand energy access for poor communities, the collection, use, and curation of these data have historically taken a back seat to the goal of expanding energy access but are increasingly being recognized as important issues. We review the nascent literature on this topic, characterize current data management practices, and examine how expanding access to data and data sharing are likely to provide value and pose risks to key stakeholders: end users of electricity, microutilities, macroutilities, governments, development institutions, and researchers. We identify the key opportunities and tensions and provide recommendations for the design and implementation of new data-sharing practices and platforms. Our review and analysis suggest that although a common and open platform for sharing technical data can mitigate risks and enable efficiency, fewer benefits are likely to be realized from sharing detailed financial data. We also recommend codesigning practices with each stakeholder group, increasing legal protections for end users of electricity and using deep qualitative data in addition to quantitative metrics.

Bold actions are necessary to unlock the potential for economic empowerment by eradicating energy poverty (UN Sustainable Development Goal 7) by 2030. This will require a sustained commitment to significant levels of new investments. Delivering on the promise of universal energy access and improved life quality has eluded policy-makers and governments over the past seven decades. Affordability of energy services for every global citizen, spanning vastly diverse regions and local contexts, requires the development and massive diffusion of technologies that offer “point-of-use” options combined with new business models. Social innovations and flexible governance approaches will also need to be integrated with technological advances. The scope and scale of developmental change span large-scale grid systems to decentralized distributed resources at community levels to the households. We recommend a global network of “energy access innovation centers” dedicated to providing a dynamic “extension service” that bolsters the entire supply chain of talent and expertise, design and operational requirements of system deployment and capacity to embed low-cost, high-performance next-generation technological solutions in the field. To meet the needs of those at the base of the economic and social pyramid, the dual challenges of economic development and transition to a low-carbon energy future make clean energy access the quintessential challenge of the 21st century.