# Electricity access and estimated population without access

Dataset page: https://meplar.com/datasets/electricity-access-gap/

Snapshot: 14 October 2026. World Bank countries/economies and aggregates, 1960–2025; access observations 1990–2024; chart uses World and Sub-Saharan Africa aggregates for every year 2000–2024.

Full data CSV: https://meplar.com/downloads/electricity-access-gap/v1/electricity_access_1960_2025.csv
Chart/summary CSV: https://meplar.com/downloads/electricity-access-gap/v1/chart_data.csv
Desktop chart: https://meplar.com/downloads/electricity-access-gap/v1/electricity_gap.png
Mobile chart: https://meplar.com/downloads/electricity-access-gap/v1/electricity_gap_mobile.png
Complete package: https://meplar.com/downloads/electricity-access-gap/v1/electricity-access-gap.zip

## Package layout and reproduction

Extract the ZIP and enter meplar_demographics/. This complete shared pipeline includes both age_profiles/ and electricity_gap/, all frozen raw indicators and country metadata, plus captured provenance. With requirements.txt, run `python clean.py`, then `MPLCONFIGDIR=/tmp/meplar-mpl python build.py`. These commands rebuild both topics offline. Do not run fetch.py for this fixed snapshot. Rendering can depend on library/font versions; the supplied chart hashes identify the reviewed originals.

## Source data and reuse

World Bank indicator metadata identifies CC BY 4.0. Attribution, a license link and identification of changes are required. World Bank additional mandatory terms also apply, including mediation then arbitration: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/public-licenses#cc-by . Source metadata and captured licensing evidence accompany the ZIP. No World Bank or UN endorsement is implied. Original Meplar charts and code are separate works; no new license for them is asserted here.

## Original source and method notes

## Main finding (WDI-derived estimates)
Global population without electricity: 1,341,674,985 in 2000 to 657,256,633 in 2024. Sub-Saharan Africa: 505,774,472 to 579,047,829. Rest of world: 835,900,513 to 78,208,804. SSA share of the global estimate: 37.6972% to 88.1007%. SSA electricity access improved from 25.7054% to 55.1104% of residents.

## Method and chart
Use official World (WLD) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSF; all income levels) aggregates. For each year, multiply population by (1 − electricity_pct/100). Derive rest-of-world counts by subtraction of SSA from world. Do not sum overlapping regional or income aggregates. The series uses every annual observation from 2000 through 2024, the latest shared year with access data. 2000 is the round start-of-century baseline, selected for interpretability; the complete underlying country-year API data, including earlier available values, is supplied. Axes begin at zero; no smoothing.

These are approximate counts reconstructed from independently maintained WDI population and access series; they are not official published SDG7 headcounts. Aggregate access rates are population-weighted but source data coverage and population vintages may differ; reconstructed values can therefore differ from SDG7 report totals. Retain "estimated" and "WDI-derived" labels. Raw country estimates can be survey-based or modeled. The API supplies no uncertainty intervals here; point estimates are not exact counts. Availability of access does not establish uninterrupted supply, affordability, consumption, or equal household service. Regional aggregation hides substantial within-region variation. Population growth is mathematically relevant but the chart does not isolate causal drivers.

## Variables
- population: WDI SP.POP.TOTL, persons, midyear de facto population.
- electricity_pct: WDI EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS, percent of population with electricity access.
- without_electricity_estimate = population * (1 − electricity_pct / 100).
- chart_data.csv provides world, SSA, and rest-of-world derived counts (persons), access percentages, and SSA share of world without access (percent).

Data source: World Bank SDG 7.1.1 Electrification Dataset, via WDI, plus WDI population estimates.
Metadata:
https://databank.worldbank.org/metadataglossary/world-development-indicators/series/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS
https://databank.worldbank.org/metadataglossary/world-development-indicators/series/SP.POP.TOTL

## Provenance and reuse
Retrieved 2026-10-14 UTC from the World Bank World Development Indicators API, source 2; API last-updated field: 2026-10-08. Original JSON responses and API URLs are in meplar_demographics/raw/ inside the ZIP. Indicator metadata HTML captured at retrieval is in meplar_demographics/provenance/ inside the ZIP.

Every indicator's WDI metadata explicitly identifies its license as CC BY 4.0. Redistribution, including commercial reuse, is permitted with attribution, a license link, and identification of changes. World Bank additional terms also apply: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/public-licenses#cc-by . License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . No World Bank or UN endorsement is implied. This is aggregated statistical data, not restricted microdata.

Changes: decoded API JSON; mapped World Bank two-character entity IDs through the official country metadata to canonical three-character codes; separated aggregate and non-aggregate entities using region.id == "NA"; outer-joined indicators on entity and year; sorted/pivoted for plotting; calculated explicitly described derived fields. API nulls remain blank CSV cells, never zero. No interpolation, smoothing, winsorization, imputation, or manual numerical edits. Russia is a display abbreviation of Russian Federation. CSV decimals are rounded to 10–12 significant digits; chart labels are rounded further. Full numerical API precision remains in raw JSON.

## Reproduce
From the root of the extracted combined package, install requirements.txt, then run `python clean.py` followed by `MPLCONFIGDIR=/tmp/meplar-mpl python build.py`. These steps use the frozen raw JSON and require no network. `python fetch.py` optionally replaces the raw snapshot with live API values (which may revise published numbers). Captured source metadata and licensing notes are included under provenance/. PNG charts are 2520 pixels wide. Python version at build: 3.12.14.

## CSV conventions
`code`: World Bank canonical three-character entity identifier, not invariably ISO; `name`: source entity name; `aggregate`: True for World Bank aggregate groups and False for economies; `year`: calendar year. Country/economy rows can include territories; aggregate rows overlap and must not be summed. Blank values mean unavailable. The full CSV retains 1960–2025 rows, including years with missing indicators, so joins remain transparent. Charts use only explicitly selected complete observations.

## Phone-first alternative