Background
Access to reliable energy is essential to promoting sustainable economic and social development. It is required not only for illumination, refrigeration, and transportation, but also for health, education, security, and nearly every commercial and industrial activity. The lack of modern energy services, a problem that affects 2 billion people worldwide, seriously constrains society’s ability to alleviate poverty and provide citizens with a reasonable quality of life.

The USAID/Brazil Energy Program’s main goal is to develop local clean and renewable energy capacity, while advancing clean energy and energy efficiency technologies and services that have the potential to benefit millions of citizens. The productive use of renewable energy technologies, such as biomass, biofuel, solar, wind and small-scale hydropower plants, has the potential to generate jobs, create business opportunities, positively impact climate change, and improve the quality of life of Brazil’s population. Renewable energy is also considered a cost-effective mean to provide energy to Brazil’s most remote communities.

USAID is also working to support the dissemination of energy conservation concepts designed to foster better use of national energy resources.

What is USAID doing in this area?
Activities are targeting the following strategic areas:

Public Policy
USAID is engaging private sector in defining public policies that foster renewable and efficient energy technologies, as well as strengthening NGOs and associations in order to stimulate favorable regulatory and policy environments.

Capacity Building
USAID is expanding capacity, sharing experiences, and disseminating concepts and technologies on renewable and efficienct energy by offering training to institutions working in the energy sector, including state and federal regulatory bodies, private sector, and financial institutions.

Clean Energy
USAID is designing, implementing, and facilitating the development of projects in renewable and efficient energy that demonstrate cost-effective mechanisms for using clean energy to promote economic development, social inclusion, and climate change mitigation.

What does USAID expect to achieve?
The USAID Energy Program is demonstrating that energy technologies can be utilized in a sustainable way, while fostering social and economic improvements to those that lack access to reliable power. USAID is also disseminating energy efficiency concepts and technologies to providers and to the public at large.

The results include:

• Promotion of public policies encouraging the development of renewable and efficient energy projects;
  
  
• Increase in the number of people with access to electricity;
  
  
• Strengthening of NGOs and associations engaged in clean energy;
  
  
• Increased electricity access to remote communities through renewable sources where the national grid is not economically or technically feasible;
  
  
• Energy savings and reduction of GHG emissions.