The Photovoltaic Decentralised Energy Investment (PV-DEI) Index measures how favourable it is to invest in decentralised photovoltaic (PV) mini-grids in a given country.

The index is based on financial, environmental, social and political factors. This explorer highlights good practices as well as challenges related to mini-grid investments for Sub-Saharan African countries.

650 million people in Africa have no access to electricity. Although the continent has a huge untapped renewable energy potential, there is a lack of investment in renewable energy systems.

The PV-DEI Index can be of interest to stakeholders in the institutional and private sectors: policy makers, international donors, governments and philanthropic investors.

The PV-DEI index uses 52 indicators classified in 4 main pillars:

- the financial indicators are positive if the funding possibilities in the country are favourable;

- the political indicators are positive if the political/policy situation is stable;

- the environmental indicators reflect the potential for exploiting local renewable energy resources, in particular with PV mini-grids, and minimizing CO2 emissions;

- the social are positive when investments can bring higher socio-economic impact, i.e., when electrification can bring greater relative benefits to areas with higher levels of poverty.

Important caution: given the rapid political changes occurring in some countries, some scores may be sensitive to the time when the data was collected.The PV-DEI index currently only covers one specific point in time (2019), although future work will extend the PVDEI-tool to measure the evolution of the index over time.