Some of the decisions required, notably regarding technology choices and business models, may arguably be decentralized to economic actors, such as independent power producers or household themselves, but some degree of central planning is needed to anticipate and address the system-wide implications of their investment choices and to fully exploit the potential synergies and complementarities across different technologies in integrating each country’s power generation mix. The multifaceted challenges of strengthening LDC energy systems thus call for a combination of system-wide long-term planning and flexibility. Grid extension inevitably leads to increased electricity demand. If generation capacity fails to keep pace with this increase, this will be reflected in reduced reliability of supply, impairing the developmental benefits of grid extension, and leaving producers and households to resort to higher-cost (and possibly more polluting) options. The planned pace of increase in access and electricity production also needs to be realistic, taking into account not only the availability of finance and construction times, but also logistical and human-resource constraints, as well as likely delays in decision-making, access to finance and project implementation.