Turning on the lights in the dark continent Renewables will bring power to a billion unserved Africans within a decade, experts say.
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enewable energy will likely bring power to many underserved areas of Africa within the next decade, industry observers say. As many as a billion people, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, lack access to electricity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 targets universal access to power by 2030. Kenya hopes to achieve universal access by as early as 2022, through connecting 1.2 million new customers annually. Renewable, off-grid power sources will have a major role to play in this transformation, according to panelists at Africa’s Energy Revolution: Perspectives on Cleantech, a recent symposium in Waterloo, Ontario. Over the past five years, conversations have shifted from relying on the electrical grid in Nigeria, to the off-grid sector as a viable business model, said Ify Malo of the Power for All & Clean Technology Hub. Samson Ondiek from Kenya Power agreed. Close to 70 per cent of the
Peter Nyeko The Marketplace September October 2019
Photos by Mike Strathdee
Samson Ondiek
and wood. The company has set up a pilot plant in northern Uganda, where 80 per cent of the 40 million population lack electricity. Mandulis has power projects in 16 sites. Off-grid systems in rural communities have allowed rural farmers to triple their incomes from $1,000 to $3,000 a year, Nyeko said. In some ways, technology is allowing parts of Africa to move ahead in renewable energy quicker than what is being done in the rest of the world, said Aaron Leopold of the African Minigrid Developers Association. “We’re doing stuff that’s really not happening here in North America (or) in Europe,” said Leopold, who is chief executive officer of the Nairobi, Kenya-based organization. The Internet of Things is making it much cheaper to connect new users to electricity, he said. “We’re really moving … to revolutionize the
600 million residents of sub-Saharan Africa who lack access to power live in remote rural areas and informal settlements in major cities, he said. Off-grid power stations and mini-grids are the tools of choice in reaching the last mile, off-grid customers. Most of the people lacking access to power are farmers, said Peter Nyeko of Uganda-based Mandulis Energy. Lack of power means they cannot process their crops and therefore receive less value for their work, he said. Over two billion people use wood fuels for cooking, with adverse health impacts he compares to the effect of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Mandulis develops renewable energy projects, both ongrid and off-grid, in emerging markets. Its biomass systems use food waste, including corn cobs and rice husks, to produce cooking fuel and Aaron Leopold electricity, replacing charcoal 8
