Are RBF programs delivering on the promise of Universal Energy Access?

Background

Over 666 million people still live without access to modern energy sources (IEA, 2025), essential to maintaining modern living standards and economic activity. Through the concerted efforts guided by the Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7), significant progress towards universal energy access by 2030 has been achieved; with the notable regional exception, however, of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In SSA, population growth has outpaced energy access, leading to a stagnation in access rates, particularly in rural areas where 451 million people still live without energy access (IEA, 2025). These last-mile users, often among the poorest and hardest to reach populations, are at the centre of the debate reshaping the energy access agenda.

This debate represents an inflection point in the sector, where the limits of the incumbent model - defined by private sector initiative - are becoming clearer, while a new direction is starting to be defined. Over the past 15 years, the incumbent model has delivered many of its original promises. It has developed and perfected the design of hardware solutions ideal for last-mile users, from Solar Home Systems (SHS) to solar lanterns, and in the process substantially lowered hardware costs; it has distributed over 561 million devices (ESMAP 2024) across the continent; and it established a sales and logistics network that can provide continuous support to users in some of the most challenging geographies on the planet. However, market pressures have increasingly pushed companies away from last-mile users to focus instead on more profitable users in the relatively more affluent urban areas. This undermines centralised electrification planning efforts, which allocate decentralised energy solutions away from urban areas typically covered by national grids, and ultimately neglects the rural communities these technologies were meant to serve.

In response, international organisations and governments across SSA are turning to subsidy programs, particularly in the form of Results Based Financing (RBF) schemes. These programs seek to re-direct the private sector’s attention to last-mile users, by lowering costs to end users and steering distribution to regions and individuals in greater need thorough added incentive structures. In addition, this new wave of subsidy programs has also broth forward the need to modernise transparency and accountability practices, placing data sharing and digital Monitoring Reporting and Verification (dMRV) tools at the centre of their implementation strategies. Through platforms like Prospect — developed by the Access to Energy Institute (A2EI) — it is now possible to assess the impact of these programs and verify whether their incentive structures are indeed enough to bring back the focus to last-mile users.

Thesis objective and scope

The student(s) will have the opportunity to examine real-world data linked to an ongoing RBF program in SSA, and make policy recommendations that may help the delivery of energy access on the ground. Through a partnership with the Access to Energy Institute (A2EI), the student(s) will have access to data hosted in the Prospect platform, and will be asked to leverage the existing data resources to assess the effectiveness of the program's measures to reach last miles users. This analysis will centre, at least, on two primary research questions:

Are decentralised energy systems being directed to last-mile users?

The first research question is primarily of a geographical nature. The student(s) will be tasked with developing a methodology that can reliably characterize, geographically, what portion of the decentralised energy access solutions is being directed to last-mile users. This will require combining geographical markers available in Prospect with public data sources to assert, with a measurable degree of statistical confidence, whether a new installation is in a rural/urban area, and whether it is in a relatively poorer/wealthier district.

Can subsidised users afford to keep the lights-on?

The second research question focuses on affordability, the primary barrier to energy access. Crucially, 39% of new solar kits - and over 96% of larger SHSs - are sold under Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGo) plans (ESMAP, 2024), which improve upfront affordability, but introduce the possibility of remotely deactivating units in the absence of subsequent payments. In practice, this implies that a new installation does not guarantee energy access, since users may struggle to pay for substantial portions of time. Considering that subsidies are typically distributed upfront with the sale completion, it is particularly important to verify whether subsidised installations are indeed leading to the intended levels of energy access. The students are therefore tasked with developing a methodology to measure the users’ ability to pay within the constraints of the data available in Prospect.

In addressing both research questions, the student(s) are tasked with two underlying objectives. The first is to develop the proposed methodologies programmatically, in an open-source language (e.g., Python), with the aim of enabling their integration into the Prospect platform and support RBF operations. The second is to frame their analysis and discussion to culminate in a set of policy recommendations to improve program evaluation effectiveness through dMRV platforms such as Prospect. These recommendations should make a critical assessment of the stated RBF objectives and existing data sharing requirements, the limitations of the methodology developed by student(s), and proposals to mitigate the identified shortcomings.

Thesis structure

There is the opportunity to develop this as a joint Thesis project with up to 2 students, and expand the scope to include other research question relevant to the overarching theme of the effectiveness of RBF programs towards achieving SDG 7.

The expected deliverables are:

• An open-source python code published in an open-source platform like GitHub with proper documentation for it to be used by others and integrated into the Prospect platform.
• A thesis report following standard KTH’s thesis structure and answering all research questions.
• Furthermore, if the work is of good quality and the student(s) are interested, the research project will be designed to be suitable for a peer-reviewed publication in a high-quality journal.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the importance of electrifying last-mile users for reaching SDG7 and its potential impact in sustainability (other SDGs).
• Analyse the effectiveness of Results-Based Financing (RBF) programs in advancing Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) and improving last-mile energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Develop and apply data-driven methodologies using open-source tools (e.g., Python) to assess geographical targeting and affordability outcomes of energy access programs.
• Integrate and interpret geospatial, socioeconomic, and PAYGo data to generate evidence-based insights and policy recommendations for more effective RBF design and implementation.
• Communicate and reflect on the methodological, policy, and ethical implications of subsidy-driven energy access interventions through scientific writing.

Criteria for Evaluation

Critical criteria in the complete work, method development and metric for the final assessment are:

• Fulfilment of the ILOs for Master Thesis at KTH's ITM School;
• The student's initiative and independence in developing the overall research design;
• A critical discussion of the assumptions and results;
• Consideration of the literature.
• The ability to communicate the results of scientific work clearly and coherently.

Prerequisites

This project is a fit for students that are comfortable working with multidisciplinary subjects. Basic previous knowledge on how to conduct a literature review is required. Previous programming skills, preferably using the Python language, are required and knowledge of SQL is an advantage but not required.

Duration

5–6 months, start January/February 2026.

Specialization track

Transformation of Energy System (TES)

Division/Department

Division of Energy Systems – Department of Energy Technology

Research area

Energy Access and Development

How to apply

Send an email expressing your interest in the topic to Camilo Ramirez (camilorg@kth.se) and Vasco Mergulhao (vasco.mergulhao@a2ei.org).

Supervisor at KTH

Supervisor at A2EI

Vasco Mergulhao - vasco.mergulhao@a2ei.org

References

IEA (2025), Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report, 2025, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-sdg7-the-energy-progress-report-2025, Licence: CC BY NC 3.0 IGO

Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report 2024: Outlook (English). Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group.