Kevin Cellucci

Kevin Cellucci is a second year in his Yale Environmental Management program (‘22). His research focus while at Yale is to understand how financial tools can provide people with access to affordable clean energy. He is currently the leader of the Energy Club and the Sustainable Finance Club, as well as a writer for the Clean Energy Finance Forum. Over the summer he conducted his research in energy access as well as worked for the VC firm Clean Energy Ventures. Prior to coming to Yale, Kevin was a credit analyst for S&P Global on the Latin American Sovereign and Multilateral Institutions team. He provided research insights into how the macro-economic, financial management, and policy decisions of governments in the LATAM region impacted their credit worthiness. Kevin also worked in the public infrastructure division of S&P Global analyzing the financial and operational management of public energy utilities. Within both of his roles at S&P, he specialized in green bond research and ESG ratings. Kevin Cellucci is now the Director of Strategy at ClearFlame Engine Technologies focusing on new market development, international expansion efforts and the go to market business models for the company’s product verticals.

Research Description:
Africa represents the future and the fate of the world will be inextricably tied to its fastest growing region. As a continent of over 1.3 billion people with an expectation to nearly double that by 2050 and a median age below 20, Africa draws a stark contrast to the graying developed world. However, despite this incredible demographic momentum, economic prosperity is not an evident short-term outcome. The region faces an essential turning point in its development as it attempts to create economic opportunities for all the young people entering the workforce, but faces institutional and financial challenges to providing basic services. In particular, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has a persistent issue with providing energy access to all of its citizens, even when compared to countries of similar economic development in other regions.

The issue of energy access is a central issue to SSA and my research is focused on summarizing the current situation across the region before diving deeper into of the three largest economies; Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria, that have all taken very different energy access pathways. The technology and energy resources to address the energy inequity exist, but the progress in applying them to this issue has been slower than expected. Over the course of research, I will do my best to explain how regional experts understand the financial and institutional barriers to energy access limitations endemic to SSA. The main primary research was over 20 interviews with experts in the government, academia, industry and NGOs.