Mini-grids

A new foundation set up by KfW will offer grants to attract investment in a bid to offer more than 350,000 people access to clean electricity.

U.S.-based Husk Power Systems has installed six solar mini-grids in the West African nation and aims to build more than 500 by 2026 with the help of World Bank funding.

Former start-up Husk, which originally based its business on renewables powered by rice industry waste products, has agreed to develop seven solar-plus-storage mini-grids across rural communities in Nasarawa state.

‘More than 90’ suppliers of appliances such as solar lanterns and home solar panels, as well as mini-grid installers, will be offered low-interest credit by an assortment of government-backed and privately-financed entities.

A report commissioned by EU lender the EIB has dismissed the role solar mini-grids can play in achieving universal electrification by 2030 and signaled distribution to individual households should be the way forward, including sales to the residents of UN refugee camps in East Africa.

Lack of grid capacity and renewable energy institutions are a common lament in sub-Saharan Africa but there is no lack of cash to invest, nor eligible projects in East Africa, as a recent event heard; the problem lies in marrying the two.

Energy efficiency, electrification of heating and transport, and the provision of clean cooking facilities are all going in the wrong direction as the Covid crisis deprived millions in sub-Saharan Africa of electricity use, according to a report by the IEA, IRENA, WHO, World Bank and UN Statistics Division.

A webinar held to discuss the role of donor funding in the African energy sector was told the U.S. president has ambitious plans to ramp up donations to developing economies – provided he can get Congress on side.

With investors often put off by a lack of supportive policy for renewables on the continent, the exceptions made to attract money to its economic trade zones might also prove more friendly to clean power infrastructure spending.

With the World Bank celebrating the success of a solar home system installation program which has provided electricity to an estimated 20 million people, an NGO has floated a near-$12 million environmental investment which could drive further PV capacity.