How to use the Total Energy Wiki

Practical Action has set up the Total Energy Wiki to encourage energy practitioners, development workers, community- and non-governmental organisations to use the same questionnaire to record information about local energy access. The results of this questionnaire can be uploaded to this site either through an Excel spreadsheet, or an online web form- both options are on the right of this page.

By sharing this Wiki with as many people as possible we hope to gather data sets that can be compared across communities, countries and regions, helping the whole energy community work towards prioritising energy access where there are obvious gaps and shortfalls.

Step 1: Print copies of the downloadable PDF questionnaires form the Total Energy Wiki: The Total Energy Access (TEA) questionnaire uses the TEA Minimum Standards Indicators describe the level of access to essential energy services for a household. The core questionnaire consists of 14 essential questions, plus 33 complementary questions that we would encourage you to answer as well. The Energy Supply Index (ESI) questionnaire can be used to measure the quality and reliability of energy supply across electricity, household fuels and mechanical power. The ESI questionnaire consists of grading supply quality across each of the three areas. By collecting TEA and ESI data for the same households it is possible to combine the results in terms of access to energy services and actual quality and reliability of the energy supply. This will help us to understand the correlation between energy supply levels and access to energy services and therefore define the real energy access situation of these households.

Step 2: Arrange to visit households in a community and record the data. This can be done through working with local community organisations, schools, authorities or NGOs. Make sure households are happy to share their data with you and that they understand that it will be recorded on the internet – including the location of their house. Remember a translator might be helpful if you don’t speak the local language.

Step 3: Using a phone, camera or GPS device, record the location of each house that you interview. There is a declaration on the questionnaire that requires permission from the interviewee to make this publicly available.

Step 4: Upload the information onto the Total Energy Wiki site, either by uploading the Excel downloadable spreadsheet or using the online form.

Step 5: Promote the Total Energy Wiki through your social networks to get as many completed questionnaires as possible.

Step 6: Use the data on the Total Energy Wiki site to build a solid base of real ground level data which cannot be found in national level statistics and that describes poor people’s actual energy experiences. These will be used to plan appropriate energy access interventions, inform policymakers, lobby governments and address financial barriers to access.