About nine in ten people worldwide now have electricity at home, but progress has stalled: 655 million people still have none, and about a quarter of humanity still cooks mainly with smoky, polluting fuels.
Updated October 13, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 people in the world who have no electricity at home, how many live in sub-Saharan Africa?
655 million
People without electricity
About 92% of the world population had access to electricity, but the number without it fell by only about 11.5 million during 2024.
Data year 2024. Source: IEA, IRENA, UN Statistics Division, World Bank and WHO, 2026
2.0 billion
People without clean cooking
About 75% of the world population relied mainly on clean fuels and technologies. The modelled estimate ranges from 1.8 to 2.4 billion people.
Data year 2024. Source: United Nations Statistics Division, 2026
2.9 million
Deaths from household air pollution
Estimated deaths from smoke of polluting fuels and stoves used in homes, including more than 309,000 children under five.
Data year 2021. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
Values as reported in Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2026. The access rate rose by about 0.7 percentage points a year in the decade to 2020 but only about 0.35 points a year from 2020 to 2024. In absolute numbers, the population without electricity fell from about 1.1 billion in 2010 to 655 million in 2024.
SDG target 7.1 calls for universal access to modern energy by 2030. If current trends continue, the electricity access rate will rise only to about 92.5% by 2030, and the IEA projects around 645 million people will still be without power, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Closing the gap would require progress to more than triple, to 1.35 percentage points a year. For cooking, about 79% of the world is projected to have clean cooking by 2030, leaving 1.8 billion people relying mainly on polluting fuels.
Sub-Saharan Africa was home to 563 million of the 655 million people without electricity in 2024, and to about 970 million of those without clean cooking. Twelve of the 20 countries with the largest electricity gaps are affected by conflict or fragility, and across fragile and conflict-affected countries the number without power barely changed between 2022 and 2024, from 429 to 428 million.
Source: IEA, IRENA, UN Statistics Division, World Bank and WHO, 2026The gap is mostly rural: 519 million rural people had no electricity in 2024, and 1.5 billion of the 2.0 billion people without clean cooking lived in rural areas. In rural sub-Saharan Africa the number without electricity grew from 376 million in 2010 to 447 million in 2024.
Source: IEA, IRENA, UN Statistics Division, World Bank and WHO, 2026Close to 1 billion people in low- and lower-middle-income countries are served by health facilities with unreliable electricity or none at all. In sub-Saharan Africa about 15% of facilities had no electricity and only 40% had a reliable supply.
Source: World Health Organization, 2023Women and children carry the heaviest health burden from polluting household fuels and spend considerable time gathering fuel. Household air pollution is responsible for 44% of pneumonia deaths in children under five.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
ModerateThe number of people without electricity fell from about 1.1 billion in 2010 to 655 million in 2024, a real achievement. But in rural sub-Saharan Africa the number without power grew from 376 million to 447 million over the same period.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
HighGrid extension, solar home systems, mini-grids and LPG are proven, commercially available technologies. What is less settled is how much they improve incomes and health in practice: a large trial in rural Kenya found little medium-run economic impact from grid connections, and a four-country trial of LPG stoves found no significant drop in severe infant pneumonia.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
ModerateOff-grid solar served an estimated 449 million people with basic Tier 1 or Tier 2 service in 2024, about a third of them as backup to a grid connection. Yet only 22% of households without access can afford the monthly fee for even a basic pay-as-you-go solar home system.
The figures rest on household surveys from most countries, but surveys are infrequent and recent years are modelled. Uncertainty is wide for cooking, where the number without access is estimated at 2.0 billion within a range of 1.8 to 2.4 billion, and neither indicator measures reliability or affordability.
Annual gains in electricity access since 2020 have been half those of the previous decade, and the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa without clean cooking is expected to reach 1 billion by 2027.
Electricity lights homes after dark, charges phones, pumps water, keeps vaccines cold and powers the machines that small businesses and health centres depend on. Since 2010 the number of people without any electricity at home has fallen from about 1.1 billion to 655 million, but the pace has roughly halved since 2020, and in 2024 the global access rate stood still at about 92%. Many households that do have a connection still get power that is weak, frequently cut or too expensive to use for more than a few lights.
Cooking is the larger and more neglected gap. About 2 billion people, roughly a quarter of the world, still cook mainly with wood, charcoal, crop waste, dung, coal or kerosene on open fires or simple stoves. The smoke fills homes and is linked to pneumonia, stroke, heart and lung disease; WHO estimates household air pollution caused about 2.9 million deaths in 2021. Women and children breathe most of it and spend much of their time gathering fuel. Both gaps are now concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and in rural areas, where population growth is outpacing new connections.
SDG target 7.1 aims to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services by 2030. It is tracked with two household indicators, both collected mainly through national household surveys and censuses, with statistical models filling the years in between:
Access to electricity (indicator 7.1.1)
The share of people living in a household whose main source of lighting is electricity, whether from the grid, a mini-grid or a solar home system. Diesel generators, batteries and candles do not count. The indicator is a yes-or-no measure: it records that power is available, not how much, how often or at what cost.
The Multi-Tier Framework
Developed by the World Bank and partners, it grades electricity supply from Tier 0 (none) to Tier 5 across seven attributes: capacity, duration, reliability, quality, affordability, legality, and health and safety. The SDG 7 tracking report treats Tier 1, a few hours of power a day for basic lighting and phone charging, as the minimum that counts as access. A small solar kit and a 24-hour grid connection can therefore both count.
Clean cooking (indicator 7.1.2)
The share of people who rely mainly on fuels and stoves that are clean for health at the point of use, as defined in WHO guidelines: electricity, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, biogas, solar and alcohol fuels, plus biomass stoves that meet WHO emission targets. Wood, charcoal, crop waste, dung, coal and kerosene count as polluting.
What the numbers miss
A connection is not the same as reliable power: the official indicator does not capture outages, voltage quality or whether people can afford to use electricity. For cooking, surveys record only the main fuel, so households that combine a gas stove with an open fire (stacking) still count as having clean cooking.
What works
Connecting more households to existing lines and extending networks remains the backbone of electrification, especially in towns and denser rural areas where many people can share the cost of each line. A randomised experiment in rural Kenya confirmed that the cost per connection falls substantially when many neighbouring households connect at once.
Limits
Grid uptake rates remain as low as 31% to 38% in Burundi, Liberia and Rwanda, largely because of high connection fees and wiring costs. In the Kenyan experiment newly connected households used very little electricity, and grid supply in many countries remains unreliable.
What works
Solar lanterns and home systems, often paid off in small instalments by mobile money, are the fastest way to bring basic light and phone charging to scattered rural households. An estimated 449 million people were served with off-grid solar in 2024, and about 65% of them had no grid access.
Limits
Most systems provide only Tier 1 or Tier 2 service, enough for lights, phone charging and a few small appliances, not for cooking or machinery. Only 22% of households without access can afford the monthly pay-as-you-go fee for a basic system, so the rest need subsidies.
What works
Local networks powered mostly by solar and batteries can supply villages too remote for the main grid with enough power for businesses, mills and health centres. Mini-grids were estimated to serve nearly 48 million people at Tier 4 or above.
Limits
Public funding currently needs to cover about 60% of mini-grid connection costs, and the 48 million estimate dates from 2022, with updated data not expected before 2027. Projects struggle when customers use too little electricity to cover their costs.
What works
LPG, biogas, ethanol and electricity burn far cleaner than wood or charcoal. In a randomised trial among 3,200 pregnant women in Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda, LPG stoves with a free, uninterrupted fuel supply were widely used and lowered infants' median exposure to fine particles from 66.0 to 24.2 micrograms per cubic metre.
Limits
Even with high use, exposure stayed above WHO recommended levels, and the trial found no significant reduction in severe pneumonia in the first year of life, nor in birth weight. Cutting exposure partly may not be enough. Fuel must be bought and refilled continually, which is hard for poor and remote households, so many keep using wood alongside gas.
What works
Solar panels with battery storage can be installed directly at clinics without waiting for the grid, keeping lights, vaccine fridges and equipment for safe childbirth running. The World Bank estimates US$4.9 billion is needed to bring health facilities in 63 low- and middle-income countries to a minimal or intermediate level of electrification.
Limits
Solar systems need budgets and trained staff for maintenance and battery replacement over their lifetime. Data on how many facilities have reliable power come from surveys in only a few dozen countries.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Electric pressure cookers and induction stoves use little energy and could allow households on grids or larger solar systems to cook without smoke. Electricity is still only a small part of the clean cooking mix, mostly in cities, and evidence on affordability and lasting use in poor rural homes is limited.
Helping mini-grid customers buy mills, refrigerators, welding machines or irrigation pumps can raise their income and make electrification pay for itself. The SDG 7 tracking report estimates that appliance financing in mini-grid areas could raise average consumption per user by up to 48%, but evidence on lasting income gains is still thin.
The World Bank and the African Development Bank aim to connect 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, combining grid and off-grid investment with policy reforms set out in national compacts. By June 2026 they reported over 50 million people connected in 40 countries and 30 compacts launched. The release does not explain how connections were counted or verified.
Satellite data on settlements and night-time lights, combined with cost models, help governments decide which areas should get the grid, a mini-grid or solar home systems. Several countries now use such plans to guide investment, but they are only as good as the data and the funding behind them.
Implementation gap
Of households worldwide still lacking electricity, 78% cannot afford even a basic solar home system or grid power at market prices and would need some form of subsidy to be connected.
Implementation gap
International public finance for clean energy in developing countries was flat at about US$24.6 billion in 2024, but commitments to sub-Saharan Africa fell from about US$7.2 billion to US$5.0 billion and flows to the least developed countries fell by 11%.
Technology gap
Many connected homes, businesses and clinics face frequent outages because utilities lack the revenue to maintain and expand networks. In sub-Saharan Africa only 40% of health facilities have reliable electricity.
Coordination gap
A large share of the remaining gap lies in fragile and conflict-affected countries, where grids are damaged, private companies are reluctant to invest and grid, mini-grid and off-grid programmes are often planned by different agencies and donors without a shared plan.
Coordination gap
Responsibility for clean cooking is often split between energy, health, environment and gender ministries, even though about three times as many people lack clean cooking as lack electricity.
Knowledge gap
Surveys measuring the quality and reliability of supply are rare, and almost 50 million forcibly displaced people who may lack clean cooking are largely absent from national data and planning.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
At what level and reliability of electricity supply do households and small businesses see lasting gains in income, education and health, and when is a basic solar kit enough?
How far must household smoke exposure fall to reduce pneumonia, low birth weight and heart and lung disease, and can that be achieved where families keep using wood or charcoal alongside cleaner fuels?
Which subsidy, financing and tariff designs can bring reliable electricity and clean cooking to the poorest households without bankrupting utilities or crowding out private suppliers?
What ownership, maintenance and payment models keep solar systems in clinics, schools and homes running for their full lifetime rather than failing after a few years?
If you donate, choose organisations that electrify clinics, schools or households and publish data on how many systems are still working after several years, not only how many were installed.
If you buy carbon credits from cookstove projects, ask how stove use and emission savings were measured and verified independently, since such claims can be hard to check.
Find out whether your government's development finance supports energy access in the least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa, where international flows have recently fallen, and raise it with your elected representatives.
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IEA, IRENA, UN Statistics Division, World Bank and WHO, published 2026
Official custodian report on SDG 7 with data for 2024: 655 million people without electricity (about 92% access), regional, rural, LDC and fragile-country breakdowns, off-grid solar and mini-grid estimates, affordability, clean cooking (75% access, about 2.0 billion without) and 2030 projections.
United Nations Statistics Division (data from IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank and WHO), published 2026
Official UN summary of SDG 7 progress, including uncertainty ranges for clean cooking (75%, 71-78%; 2.0 billion, 1.8-2.4 billion people in 2024) and international public finance flows for 2024.
World Health Organization, published 2025
WHO definitions of clean and polluting household fuels, 2.9 million deaths from household air pollution in 2021 including over 309,000 children under five, burden on women and children, and climate pollutants from stoves.
World Health Organization, published 2023
Close to 1 billion people served by health facilities without reliable or any electricity; share of facilities without power in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa from surveys in 27 countries (2015-2022); US$4.9 billion investment need.
New England Journal of Medicine 390:32-43 (McCollum, McCracken, Kirby et al., HAPIN Investigators), published 2024
Randomised trial of free LPG stoves and fuel among 3,200 pregnant women in Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda: large reduction in exposure but no significant difference in severe pneumonia in the first year of life.
World Bank, published 2026
Progress report of the World Bank and African Development Bank initiative to connect 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030: over 50 million people in 40 countries and 30 national energy compacts as of June 2026.