The US Energy Information Administration’s most recent briefing ‘Today in Energy’ reports that an examination of the general increase in global access to electricity during the past two decades shows a significant rise between 1994 and 2014.
According to the most recent data from the World Bank, says the briefing, 15% of the world’s population—approximately 1.1 billion people—lacked access to electricity in 2014. However, access has been generally increasing over the past two decades. In 1994, approximately 27% of the world’s population lacked access.
Part of the increased is attributable to the faster rate of population growth in urban areas; the share of the world’s population living in urban areas grew from 44% in 1994 to 53% in 2014. Urban areas tend to be more electrified, but most of the world’s population without access to electricity live in rural areas. In 2014, 27% of the world’s rural population did not have electricity access compared with 4% of urban populations.”
