Of the 733 million people who lack access to electricity worldwide, 600 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to data from the World Bank. The region’s current electrification pace must triple to bring energy access to this population by 2030.

Among the barriers to expanding and improving the power grid is spotty information about existing networks, particularly the mid- and low-voltage lines that bring power to end users.

Jürgen Hackl, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is using network science and statistical methods to infer the region’s grid structure from existing data. Crucially, his team’s models quantify their own uncertainty and can be updated as more data becomes available.

“To invest a lot of money in this kind of system, you want to know what’s already there,” said Hackl. With network models, “we can test different hypotheses on how the network might change or how we could change the network in order to fulfill certain needs.”

Hackl’s group plans to validate their models using data from better-mapped electricity networks. Then, they will create tools to help prioritize investments for policymakers at the World Bank and the engineering firm WSP. Hackl has a formal collaboration with WSP through the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment’s Fund for Energy Research with Corporate Partners.