In spite of the intention of governments to increase the use of renewable energy in electricity supply, particularly the use of solar photovoltaic (PV) for energy poverty reduction in rural and peri-urban areas of Africa, there is relatively little information on how solar PV electrification impacts on energy poverty reduction.

India should retool its economy to run on renewable energy, creating millions of jobs and raising the standard of living. The global economic downturn provides an excellent opportunity to improve India's energy supplies, which are critical to supporting better infrastructure and driving growth. India predicts it will need an extra 75,000 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity by 2012.

Clean Edge, which has been tracking the growth of clean-tech markets for nearly a decade, reports that global revenues for solar photovoltaics, wind power, and biofuels expanded from $75.8 billion in 2007 to $115.9 billion in 2008. For the first time, one sector alone, wind, had revenues exceeding $50 billion.