Powering Agriculture

About Us

Powering Agriculture: An Energy Grand Challenge for Development (PAEGC) is an initiative of The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), The Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Duke Energy and The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

The objective of Powering Agriculture is to support the development and deployment of clean energy innovations that increase agriculture productivity and stimulate low carbon economic growth in the agriculture sector of developing countries to help end extreme poverty and extreme hunger. Therefore, PAEGC has awarded direct grants to 24 innovators worldwide via two international competitions in 2013 and 2015.

The German contribution to the international partner initiative PAEGC is implemented through the GIZ Powering Agriculture project on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. As part of this initiative, GIZ has supported more than 20 pilot projects, including projects on energy efficiency in the Kenyan tea sector, solar powered cooling and drying systems.

Another outstanding contribution of GIZ Powering Agriculture has been the creation of a Solar- Powered Irrigation Systems (SPIS) Toolbox that provides advisors, service providers and practitioners in the field of solar irrigation with broad hands-on guidance on how to transfer knowledge to end-users, policy-makers and financiers. With the aim to build capacities and disseminate the SPIS Toolbox, trainings and Trainings-of-Trainers (ToT) on Solar Powered Irrigation Systems (SPIS) have been developed, conducted and integrated into various standing curricula. Furthermore Powering agriculture developed and implemented various trainings on self-made solar cooling systems (DIY Cooling systems).

Additionally, GIZ Powering Agriculture creates and disseminates various types of knowledge products: among others, several studies focusing on the implementation of renewable energies and energy efficiency measures in different agricultural value chains as well as on the benefits and risks of solar powered irrigation systems have been published. 

In 2014, the first edition of the Powering Agriculture Portal has been launched on Energypedia with the objective to provide and exchange knowledge on renewable energies and energy efficiency in agriculture. In December 2019, the Energypedia portal has been re-launched with enhanced features and a new structure to facilitate the knowledge transfer between stakeholders. Read more...