Abstract
In urban areas of Ghana, more than 90% of households are already connected to the electric grid. In these settings, the primary issue is the reliability of the grid rather than the lack of access to electricity. Since 2012, persistent power failures in Ghana have negatively affected its economy and given rise to the term “Dumsor,” meaning “lights off-on” in the local Akan language. According to the 2013 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, 61.2% of firms in Ghana see electricity reliability as a major constraint, with firms reporting an average of over 700 hours of outages annually, compared to 1.5 hours for firms in the U.S. We deploy the GridWatch technology and exploit experimental and quasi-random variation in power quality across Accra to understand the costs, benefits, and socio-economic impacts of power quality improvements.