Greater detail on the specific technological and planning challenges facing energy-deprived developing economies is required to improve energy policy making and development assistance practice. The current literature tends to highlight electricity services, and, to a lesser extent, clean cooking. This article calls for a closer look at mobility and mechanical power as essential energy services in addition to a refinement of the specific institutional arrangements needed to reduce energy poverty and deprivation. This article augments and refines arguments made by Morgan Bazilian and his colleagues in their viewpoint "More Heat and Light". (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.