Mini-grids

The five solar-plus-storage facilities will be located in Zambézia and Nampula provinces.

840 million people still don’t have access to electricity today, according to the World Bank. But the radical decrease in the cost of the green technologies of solar and battery storage provides an unparalleled opportunity to close this gap and achieve universal electricity access by 2030.

The Austrian motorway company Asfinag is planning to power, with solar-plus-storage, all its maintenance facilities. These installations are planned to power the stations at night and in the event of a grid failure.

The former need not necessarily relate to conventional lithium-ion batteries, however, as a recent webinar staged by Solarpower Europe and EU body GET.invest discovered.

Kenyan utility KPLC wants to retrofit 23 diesel mini-grids by adding wind and solar power generators. PV is the only option available for 21 of the selected sites.

The Sustainable Development Goal set forth in SDG 7.1 calls for universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services by 2030. It is estimated that currently 789 million people do not have access to electricity in their homes or communities. Rural inhabitants encompass 80% of the total number of people lacking household electricity access. On a global scale, rural inhabitants have been gaining access to electricity at a rapid rate over the past couple decades (IRENA 2020, 23). However, certain regions have seen little improvement in this area. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is the starkest example.

Some 15% of the finance disbursed must fit the wider definition of being ‘sustainable’ and banks and other lenders have been warned penalties will be applied for non compliance.

A new fund established by the African Development Bank could attract $650 million of private money into the sector, according to the lender.

The Kenyan financial services business has been developing rural mini grids across Africa and has announced plans to show its rivals how such networks can thrive, in a bid to accelerate access to electricity on the continent.

The rise of clean energy and prosumers, net metering and greenhouse gas regulation all figure among the bogeymen as far as national electric companies are concerned.