Assessing Energy Technology Leapfrogs

Summary: The idea of an energy technology “leapfrog” is that emerging markets might avoid the dirty development trajectories of today’s mature markets by skipping directly to cleaner technologies not based on fossil fuels. The transition to mobile phone telephony in sub-Saharan Africa is a widely cited example of a successful technology leapfrog. By considering three key characteristics of the mobile phone transition — 1) previous demonstration in mature markets, 2) usefulness of the technology as a workaround that avoids the need to build expensive, obsolete infrastructure, and 3) equivalent (or better) functionality for users — we can better assess which energy technologies are good candidates as leapfrogs.