CrossBoundary × University of Colorado Boulder · May 2026
A light in the dark: can satellites see mini-grid electrification?
Peer-reviewed research testing whether night-time satellite imagery, the basis of most electrification maps, can detect the 700+ mini-grids built across sub-Saharan Africa. Largely, it can't.
- mini-grids analysed
- 700+
- mini-grids analysed
- countries, 2014–2023
- 20
- countries, 2014–2023
- of known sites flagged as electrified by OEMaps
- 9%
- of known sites flagged as electrified by OEMaps
Most of what we “know” about who has electricity in rural Africa comes from space. Global electrification maps infer access from night-time light: if a settlement glows on satellite imagery, it is counted as connected. These maps shape where governments, donors and investors direct billions in energy-access funding.
Mini-grids are small, local power systems serving villages beyond the national grid, and they are a growing share of new connections. We asked a simple question: when a mini-grid switches on, does the satellite notice?
The approach
Working with Isaiah Lyons-Galante and Morteza Karimzadeh at the University of Colorado Boulder, we studied more than 700 mini-grids in 20 countries built between 2014 and 2023. I contributed to the data curation and formal analysis from CrossBoundary’s Mini-Grid Innovation Lab in Nairobi.
We used a difference-in-differences design to test whether VIIRS night-time brightness at mini-grid sites changes when they are commissioned.
What we found
Mini-grids do not significantly change the night-time light signature immediately after they’re installed. A lagged model suggests a positive effect only emerges around six years later. Even where light is visible, it says little about how much power people actually use: brightness correlates only weakly with consumption (r = 0.26) and with the number of connections (r = 0.27).
The practical consequence shows up when you check leading electrification maps against sites we know are electrified:
Source: Lyons-Galante, Sweetland & Karimzadeh (2026), ERIS 6(2) 025009, CC BY 4.0
Every one of these sites has an operating mini-grid. Depending on the map and threshold, between roughly half and nine in ten of them are recorded as unelectrified.
Why it matters
If remote-sensing maps systematically miss mini-grid customers, rural electrification is being undercounted. That understates the progress mini-grids have delivered and risks misdirecting subsidy and investment towards places that already have power. For me, the lesson is that satellite data needs to be paired with ground-truth operational data, the kind developers already collect, rather than relied on alone.