Africa Electricity Access Rates from Nighttime Lights, 2000-2021

Annual Electricity Access Rate (EAR) estimates for Africa from 2000 to 2021 at national and sub-national administrative levels. The dataset was generated by Tam Kemabonta using harmonized nighttime luminosity and gridded population data at 1 km² resolution. Administrative boundaries are based on GADM version 4.1 definitions.

Use Cases

• Tracking national and sub-national electricity access progress over time based on the Year and EAR fields.
• Modeling the relationship between population density and electrification based on TotPop and EAR data.
• Creating geospatial visualizations of electricity access disparities across Africa using the provided administrative boundary join keys.
• Benchmarking country-level electrification rates against regional averages using the national-level (Adm0) estimates.

Strengths

• Provides a 22-year time series (2000-2021) for longitudinal analysis.
• Offers estimates at three spatial scales (Adm0, Adm1, Adm2) for multi-level analysis.
• Data is derived from a consistent 1 km² resolution source (nighttime lights and population grids).
• Includes a total population field (TotPop) for calculating affected populations.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Estimates are derived from satellite proxies (nighttime lights) rather than direct utility connections.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Tam Kemabonta.

Collection Method

Generated using harmonized nighttime luminosity (NTL) data and gridded population datasets.

Time Range

2000 to 2021

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-26 21:40:56; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Africa, at administrative levels 0 (national), 1, and 2.