Where Water and Energy meet

By Sean Furey. Re-blogged from where Water and Energy meet, LinkedIn.

I have to credit the likes of Patrick Moriarty , IRCWASH, Bethlehem Mengistu Agenda for Change and Duncan McNicholl for getting me back into #SystemsThinking, which I had obsessed over 20 years ago when working on integrated water management withing urban and catchment master-planning for the Environment Agency but once I moved on it faded into the background.

Then, a while back, Tom Chaplin and The Stone Family Foundation asked me whether the private-sector run water mini-grids that they had been supporting in Cambodia were to be found anywhere else in the world. Using the power of the RWSN – Rural Water Supply Network and our network of networks I tried to find any examples around the world that had similarities. I wasn’t very successful. However, as a by-product, I learned a lot about electricity mini-grids and this, along with an experience of meeting village micro-hydropower entrepreneurs in Myanmar with Dipti Vaghela and Hedi Feibel slowly baked into an obsession: could the parallel systems of rural #water supply and rural #energy supply be brought together?

So, I had great discussions over the last year with David Lecoque and Jens Jæger at Alliance for Renewable Electrification and internally, with the RWSN Executive Committee – particularly with James Origa, Ph.D and Diane Arjoon when it came to the #Mission300 – the ambitious World Bank/AfDB investment programme for electrification for 300 million people across Africa.

Attending the #EAIF2026 conference in Nairobi recently, I listened to some great speakers (learned a load of new acronyms and jargon) and had a range of really interesting conversations, some brief, some in depth with wonderfully open, helpful people, including Cornay Keefer , Ravishka Jairam and Prince Innocent from Schneider Electric ; Karin Jeanneret Vezzini from ennos ag ; Jakub Vrba from the Energy Saving Trust ; Mihaela Chirca from Expertise France ; Vivian Vendeirinho ; Leonard D’Cunha ; Dr. Georgia Badelt ; Petteri Pulli ; Sisty Basil ; Elizabeth (Lizzie) Biney-Amissah ; Kondwani Gondwe ; Janos Bonta ; Lena Musoka, MPH, MSc and many more.

The graphic is my attempt to distill what I’ve learned through all of this (trying to avoid a systems diagram with lots of squiggly arrows) to identify some leverage points where the two sectors could reinforce each other. Right now, the urban way of thinking and working dominates: water and energy are separate and there are very good reasons for doing that; but applying urban logic to rural areas, with lower populations densities, different economies and different social and cultural norms, does not have great track record.

Instead, how about focusing attention on these three leverage points where the two systems intersect:

1. Small rural settlements. Solar mini-grids are often borderline viable. A parallel mini-piped water service, with the water provider as a paying anchor customer, could strengthen demand and unlock investment for both. The hard part isn’t the contract – it’s that it assumes professional water service provision, which sits in tension with the community-managed model most rural water runs on.
2. Off-grid productive/multiple use. Solar pumping for irrigation, livestock and small-scale processing. The water-energy-food nexus at farm and household level sees water an power as a means for income generation, not simply a utility bill to paid. Climate resilience and food security can be the outcomes of this.
3. Self-supply: bundled household products. Household water filters, clean cookstoves, solar fridges, lighting, telecoms. Josh Goralski, CNP told me the other day that filters and cookstoves sell better together than apart. So here, the financial logic here is about retail not infrastructure.

So, what next?

The synergies are there, an in some cases already working, but systematic collaboration and co-investment is not there and the scaling potential is untapped for both sides. Aline Saraiva Okello, PhD and I had a debrief meeting with Kogi Chege from Global Water Center and Dr Hans Komakech from NM-AIST and they were level headed about the gap in mutual understanding between the energy investment community and the water sector. It’s like the case for energy spurring economic development is a no-brainer investment case, but water… not so much.

As a side note, I recently interviewed Larry Cooley for my #GoodNetworks book and the I have been dipping into the resources of the Scaling Community of Practice for inspiration. This is informing my thinking on how Middle-Out networks like RWSN, ARE, Sanitation and Water for All – a UNICEF-hosted global partnership , Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and AquaFed can help convene the conversations and build the partnerships that can unlock the potential of energy and water #PPPs, and ways to stack and blend different forms of grant, equity and debt finance. This is already getting into language that I’m uncomfortable with so I will need to invest in my own knowledge on this one and get advice from wise heads like Rob Hope , Alex Money and Neil Dhot .

Let me know what you think: is there a bright future for deeper collaboration and co-investment in rural water, energy and food systems?