British Virgin Islands - Access to electricity (% of population)

Access to electricity (% of population) in British Virgin Islands was 100.00 as of 2020. Its highest value over the past 30 years was 100.00 in 2020, while its lowest value was 94.61 in 1990.

Definition: Access to electricity is the percentage of population with access to electricity. Electrification data are collected from industry, national surveys and international sources.

Source: World Bank, Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) database from the SE4ALL Global Tracking Framework led jointly by the World Bank, International Energy Agency, and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program.

See also:

Year Value
1990 94.61
1991 94.82
1992 95.04
1993 95.26
1994 95.48
1995 95.69
1996 95.90
1997 96.11
1998 96.31
1999 96.51
2000 97.41
2001 97.52
2002 97.63
2003 97.72
2004 97.82
2005 97.91
2006 98.01
2007 98.11
2008 98.21
2009 98.33
2010 98.30
2011 98.66
2012 98.85
2013 99.02
2014 99.18
2015 100.00
2016 100.00
2017 100.00
2018 100.00
2019 100.00
2020 100.00

Development Relevance: Maintaining reliable and secure electricity services while seeking to rapidly decarbonize power systems is a key challenge for countries throughout the world. More and more countries are becoming increasing dependent on reliable and secure electricity supplies to underpin economic growth and community prosperity. This reliance is set to grow as more efficient and less carbon intensive forms of power are developed and deployed to help decarbonize economies. Energy is necessary for creating the conditions for economic growth. It is impossible to operate a factory, run a shop, grow crops or deliver goods to consumers without using some form of energy. Access to electricity is particularly crucial to human development as electricity is, in practice, indispensable for certain basic activities, such as lighting, refrigeration and the running of household appliances, and cannot easily be replaced by other forms of energy. Individuals' access to electricity is one of the most clear and un-distorted indication of a country's energy poverty status. Electricity access is increasingly at the forefront of governments' preoccupations, especially in the developing countries. As a consequence, a lot of rural electrification programs and national electrification agencies have been created in these countries to monitor more accurately the needs and the status of rural development and electrification. Use of energy is important in improving people's standard of living. But electricity generation also can damage the environment. Whether such damage occurs depends largely on how electricity is generated. For example, burning coal releases twice as much carbon dioxide - a major contributor to global warming - as does burning an equivalent amount of natural gas.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Data for access to electricity are collected among different sources: mostly data from nationally representative household surveys (including national censuses) were used. Survey sources include Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), Multi-Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), the World Health Survey (WHS), other nationally developed and implemented surveys, and various government agencies (for example, ministries of energy and utilities). Given the low frequency and the regional distribution of some surveys, a number of countries have gaps in available data. To develop the historical evolution and starting point of electrification rates, a simple modeling approach was adopted to fill in the missing data points - around 1990, around 2000, and around 2010. Therefore, a country can have a continuum of zero to three data points. There are 42 countries with zero data point and the weighted regional average was used as an estimate for electrification in each of the data periods. 170 countries have between one and three data points and missing data are estimated by using a model with region, country, and time variables. The model keeps the original observation if data is available for any of the time periods. This modeling approach allowed the estimation of electrification rates for 212 countries over these three time periods (Indicated as "Estimate"). Notation "Assumption" refers to the assumption of universal access in countries classified as developed by the United Nations. Data begins from the year in which the first survey data is available for each country.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Environment Indicators

Sub-Topic: Energy production & use