Experimenting with Data-Driven Approaches to Well-Being in Off-Grid Informal Urban Settings

This project aims to provide detailed, qualitative and quantitative data on off-grid energy provision impacts on well-being in the poorest South African households. It brings together engineers and social scientists through the main project activity: an intervention to bring solar home systems and a mini grid to a small informal settlement in Cape Town that has not been electrified. In so doing, the project seeks to achieve real change and address the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals related to sustainable and healthy communities, reducing inequalities, and improving socio-environmental conditions for households, especially women, girls and children. It is anticipated that the project will inform South African policy and private sector thinking and contribute also to addressing the challenge of well-being and energy provision in informal settlements in broader sub-Saharan Africa.

Research Team: Dr Federico Caprotti, University of Exeter; Dr Bothwell Batidzirai, University of Cape Town; Dr Catherine Butler, University of Exeter; Dr Jiska de Groot, University of Cape Town