Even as global energy demand continues to rise, billions of people in around 100 countries remain without access to basic modern energy services. Today nearly 2 billion people lack access to clean cooking and 730 million people lack access to electricity. Millions of households, businesses and public institutions such as clinics and schools operate without reliable modern energy. This limits productivity and hinders socioeconomic development. It also perpetuates the use of traditional biomass, with damaging consequences for health and the environment.

The Accelerating Clean Cooking and Electricity Services Scenario (ACCESS) charts a path to achieve universal access to clean cooking and electricity based on the best rates of progress achieved historically. The ACCESS prioritises cost-effective and proven measures to improve access, considering all relevant fuels and technologies, and the infrastructure, policies and financing needed to scale them up. It draws on new modelling developed by the IEA based on a country-by-country analysis. It examines distinct pathways for rural and urban areas that take account of the rates of progress achieved in countries sharing similar characteristics in terms of demography, levels of prosperity, resource availability and institutional governance. The modelling assesses the availability and cost of potential solutions and selects the option that is most affordable relative to household incomes and that maximises consumer benefits, based on detailed geospatial modelling.