Derived map of global electricity transmission and distribution lines

Overview: Global results from gridfinder model, produced by ESMAP based on joint work with Facebook and others. Uses night-time lights, road networks and existing grid network data to predict the location of transmission and distribution lines globally. Validated in several countries with ~70% accuracy at 1 km. More information: Blog with brief overview: https://blogs.worldbank.org/energy/using-night-lights-map-electrical-gri... Full research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0347-4 Visualization: https://gridfinder.org/ The following data are included:

grid.gpkg: Vectorized predicted distribution and transmission line network, with existing OpenStreetMap lines tagged in the 'source' column targets.tif: Binary raster showing locations predicted to be connected to distribution grid. lv.tif: Raster of predicted low-voltage infrastructure in kilometres per cell.

Data and Resources

Field Value
Groups
  • Affordable and Clean Energy
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • Global Provider
  • Sustainable Development Goals
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • Energy
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • Global
  • SDG
  • SDG7
  • World Bank
isopen False
license_id CC-BY-4.0
license_title CC-BY-4.0
metadata_created 2025-09-18T20:31:13.953020
metadata_modified 2025-09-18T20:31:13.953027
notes <h4>Overview:</h4> <p>Global results from <a href="https://github.com/carderne/gridfinder">gridfinder</a> model, produced by ESMAP based on joint work with Facebook and others. Uses night-time lights, road networks and existing grid network data to predict the location of transmission and distribution lines globally. Validated in several countries with ~70% accuracy at 1 km.</p> <h4>More information:</h4> <p>Blog with brief overview: <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/energy/using-night-lights-map-electrical-grid-infrastructure">https://blogs.worldbank.org/energy/using-night-lights-map-electrical-gri...</a><br /> Full research paper: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0347-4">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0347-4</a><br /> Visualization: <a href="https://gridfinder.org/">https://gridfinder.org/</a></p> <h4>The following data are included:</h4> <ul> <li><strong>grid.gpkg</strong>: Vectorized predicted distribution and transmission line network, with existing OpenStreetMap lines tagged in the 'source' column</li> <li><strong>targets.tif</strong>: Binary raster showing locations predicted to be connected to distribution grid.</li> <li><strong>lv.tif</strong>: Raster of predicted low-voltage infrastructure in kilometres per cell.</li> </ul>
num_resources 4
num_tags 9
title Derived map of global electricity transmission and distribution lines