'Electricity for all' programme

Today, there are calculated to be around 600 million people with no access to essential power services, which negatively influences their quality of life and opportunities for development.

With the Electricity for all programme, we are responding to the call made by the international community to bring universal access to modern forms of power, with provision models that are environmentally sustainable, economically viable and socially inclusive, linking its purpose with SDG 7.1. The Electricity for all programme aims to ensure access to electricity in emerging and developing countries, as well as vulnerable people in developed countries. The company recently signed a new sustainable loan for 1.5 billion euros linked to those objectives.

This ambitious initiative is centered on performing sustainable electrification actions, so we take advantage of our technical, logistical, organisational and financial capacity.

Electricity for all has four lines of action:

• Financing projects through investment in capital
• Activities carried out by the businesses in the countries where Iberdrola has a presence
• Development of projects with a high social component, through NGOs and corporate volunteering.
• Giving Access to vulnerable people in developed countries, through different agreements and projects to help vulnerable clients.

From the launch of the Electricity for all programme in January 2014, until the end of 2023, we have contributed to 12.4 million people benefiting from access to electricity through projects carried out in different countries in Latin America and Africa.

 'Electricity for all' Programme [PDF] External link, opens in new window.

Lights of hope (Mexico)

Nearly 270,000 homes in Mexico do not have access to electricity, according to the 2020 Population and Housing Census of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

Iberdrola Mexico, in alliance with Iluméxico, has launched Luces de Esperanza External link, opens in new window. (Lights of Hope), a project that will bring electricity to 60 rural communities in Mexico — in the states of San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca —, thanks to the installation of solar panels in homes, schools, health centres and community areas. The programme, carried out in two phases, has an investment of 60 million Mexican pesos and will benefit 12,000 people over the next five years.

San Luis Potosí

The first phase took place in 2019, when Lights of Hope reached communities in Huasteca Potosina External link, opens in new window. (San Luis de Potosí), where 48 homes and three community centres were identified. In the second phase, a hundred homes External link, opens in new window. and four community spaces will be electrified in 36 communities of five other locations.

Oaxaca

In 2020 the project was brought to the municipality of Pochutla External link, opens in new window., near the Oaxaca coast, to install 95 pieces of equipment that will provide solar energy to homes in nine communities, benefiting 380 people. In 2022, more than 400 people benefited and 115 homes were electrified in the state of Oaxaca.

In these towns, workshops are also given — along with the ConcentrArte organisation — on environmental education and energy generation, aimed at children and adults, and coexistence activities are carried out aimed at strengthening social cohesion.

The progress of its results will be accompanied by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the umbrella agency for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDOs), which will document its contribution to the achievement of Agenda 2030.

Light for all (Brazil)

"The right to live in the country with dignity." This phrase, from Julinda dos Santos, Biquinha, is a good representation of the Light for All programme being undertaken by Neoenergia^* in conjunction with the Federal Government of Brazil to promote universal access to electricity in rural areas.

Biquinha is one of the 2.4 million people to benefit from this programme in the state of Bahía since its implementation in 2004 up to September 2020. In these 16 years, 664,000 houses have been benefitted in 415 cities, and the final goal is to energize the entire state by 2021.

The programme, set to continue in the state until December 2021, has already covered Pernambuco (with 102,157 houses benefited between 2004 and 2015), Rio Grande do Norte (57,654), São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul (49,458 between the two states from 2005 to 2016) — areas that form part of Neoenergia^* concession — transforming the lives of millions of people.

Within this programme, Iberdrola's Brazilian subsidiary has brought electricity to the Indians in the village of Patiburi External link, opens in new window., situated in Belmonte (south of Bahia). The initiative has benefited 25 families of Tupinambá origin, the first inhabitants of Brazil, and has made the functioning of a school possible, to be attended by some 30 children of the community.

To achieve this, 256 posts have been installed together with medium and low voltage lines and seven transformers.

Iberdrola with the refugees

Iberdrola has joined the first public-private partnership set up to bring electricity to the refugee camps, Alianza ShireEnlace externo, se abre en ventana nueva. , which promotes the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. This initiative is particularly connected to goal 7, which aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; and goal 17, which aims to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

Thanks to its commitment to SDG 17, Alianza Shire has been honoured in the go!ODS Awards, organised by the Spanish Global Compact Network — the biggest initiative backed by the United Nations to progress towards private sector sustainability — and the Rafael del Pino Foundation.

^* Neoenergia, S.A. is 50 % + 1 share indirectly owned by Iberdrola, S.A.