Category: Africa

The African continent could generate nearly a quarter of its energy needs using indigenous, clean, renewable energy by 2030.

“Africa holds some of the best renewable energy resources in the world in the form of biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind,” Adnan Z. Amin, the IRENA Director-General recently said.

“This, combined with the precipitous drop of renewable energy technology costs, creates a massive opportunity for African countries to both transform and expand their energy systems while providing a pathway for low-carbon economic growth,” he said.

According to busiweek.com, IRENA offers a comprehensive roadmap for Africa’s energy transition, insisting that a combination of modern renewable technology could realistically meet 22% of Africa’s energy needs by 2030. This is more than a four-fold increase from just five per cent in 2013.

The report also finds that scaling up modern renewables in Africa is an affordable means to help meet fast-growing energy demand while increasing energy access, improving health and achieving sustainability goals.

The report identifies nearly 10 exajoules (the equivalent of more than 341 megatonnes of coal) of options for sustainable development through renewable energy.

Roughly 40% of this energy would be in the power sector. Solar resources are abundant across the continent, while biomass and hydropower potential are more plentiful in the central and southern regions.

Wind resources are strongest in the north, east, and southern regions, and geothermal energy is strong in the Great Rift Valley.

Renewable energy capacity additions could increase the share of modern renewables in the power sector to 50% by 2030, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 310 megatonnes.

Developing these projects is more cost-effective than ever before, with solar and wind projects across Africa now producing record-low electricity prices.

Roughly 50% of the energy from the recommended options would be through biomass-based heat applications. Half of all energy use in Africa today involves traditional biomass consumption.

The report estimates that a shift to modern renewable energy cooking solutions would reduce the use of traditional cook stoves by more than 60%, saving $20 billion to $30 billion annually by 2030 through the reduction of health complications from poor indoor air quality.

“Tapping into renewable energy resources is the only way African nations can fuel economic growth, maximise socio-economic development and enhance energy security with limited environmental impact,” Amin said

“The technologies are available, reliable and increasingly cost-competitive.

“The onus is now on Africa’s governments to create conditions to accelerate deployment, paving the way for Africa’s unfettered, sustainable development,” he said.

The report recommends 14 actions to speed the uptake of renewables on the continent, including enabling policies and a regulatory framework to catalyse investment, adopting investment promotion measures, and off-grid renewable energy solutions to increase energy access and reduce poverty.

In Kinshasa, the teeming capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where drivers often flout traffic rules, five chunky, arm-waving robots equipped with cameras, lights and solar panels have been set up to watch over the roads.

According to South China Morning Post, the solar-powered aluminium robots are huge, towering over the jammed streets, as cars and motorcycles jostle for road room, their horns blasting.

Each hand on the odd-looking machines – built to withstand the year-round tropical climate – is fitted with green and red lights that regulate the flow of traffic in the sprawling city of nine million.

The robots are also equipped with rotating chests and surveillance cameras that send real-time images to the police station.

Although the humanoids look more like giant toys than real policemen, motorists have given them a thumbs-up.

“There are certain drivers who don’t respect the traffic police. But with the robot it will be different. We should respect the robot,” taxi driver Poro Zidane said.

“We’re very happy about it,” he said, his taxi packed with passengers as drivers around him honked their horns in a desperate bid to cut through the traffic jam.

Of the five robots set up across the capital, two have been regulating traffic since 2013.

On Tuesday, three new and improved robots developed by a Congolese association of women engineers were set up.

The newcomers even have names: Tamuke, Mwaluke and Kisanga. Each cost US$27,500.

Therese Izay, president of Women’s Technology, the group behind the robots, believes the invention will help make it far more difficult for motorists to get away with traffic violations.

“In our city, someone can commit an offence and run away, and say that no one saw him. But now, day or night, we’ll be able to see him in real time and he will pay his fine like in all the serious countries of the world,” she said.

But Kinshasa governor Andre Kimbuta said that while the machines could regulate traffic, they were no match for real human policemen who could chase motorists who jump red lights and raise civic awareness.

“We should congratulate our Congolese engineers, but policemen also need to do their job,” the civic leader said.

Samsung Electronics South Africa has delivered a Solar Powered Internet School (SPIS) to the Chief SW Nhlapho Secondary School in Dundonald, Mpumalanga. The executive mayor of Chief Albert Luthuli Municipality, B.P. Shiba, attended the handover ceremony, along with the Department of Education’s acting district director, P.P. Magagula.

Head of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics South Africa, Pitso Kekana was also in attendance.
Many communities facing economic and geographic challenges often have little or no access to electricity and Samsung designed the SPIS with these issues in mind.

According to Media Update, the units come completely self-contained with solar generators and wireless communication, providing unlimited access to technology, communication and information as long as there is sunlight to power the solar panels, digital cellular network or satellite connectivity.

This initiative is part of Samsung’s Corporate Citizenship programme, which seeks to provide educational material and connected classrooms to disadvantaged communities.

Chief SW Nhlapo Secondary School was established in 1994 and currently has 643 learners. In 2014 the school obtained an 81.03% pass rate, producing the highest number of matric passes in Dundonald.

The pupils of this school possess an incredible amount of dedication and perseverance and the school is geared towards advancing the surrounding community. The secondary school was crowned as the proud winners of a national competition called the ‘2012 Youth Citizens Action Programme’, where learners were challenged to demonstrate empowered active citizenship.

The Chief SW Nhlapo High School presented a road safety campaign which tackled a number of challenges they faced outside their school. The campaign generated awareness for learners to make use of the pedestrian crossings and have the boundaries of their roads fixed.

In addition, the learners approached local traffic police to assist with taking non-roadworthy vehicles off the road, which is one of the main contributing factors to road accidents. This school demonstrated that hard work and persistence is a reward on its own.

“The school’s drive and enthusiasm displayed in their zeal to make the road safety campaign a collective achievement, further gives us faith that they will indeed make a success of the SPIS,” concludes Kekana.

Solarcentury (London, UK) will build the biggest solar PV carport at a car park at Garden City Mall, that is sittuated on 32-acre retail park, residential area and office development Nairobi’s Thika Superhighway. Solar energy harvested by the 858 kWp PV system will go to the retail tenants.

“We are incredibly proud to be bringing our second dual-mode solar system to Kenya, this time to build East Africa’s largest rooftop system,” commented Dr. Dan Davies, Director for Solarcentury in East Africa.

The new carport is going to be designed with the financial help of NVI Energy’s Solar4Africa, a 12 year financed solution that enables Garden City to harness the power of renewable energy, overcoming many of the barriers that can frequently beset commercial solar projects.

Besides helping with the shading, over 3000 solar panels will bring 1.256 MWh of solar energy every year and reduce carbon emissions by 745 tonnes every year.

The solution they came up with is a new one as it brings solar energy during the day and when the grid is down at night, the system also diminishes the need of diacutting the bills of Garden City’s retail tenants.

This is ideal for cities as there is few space left and the energy needs grow. The panels are useful because they are situated on an unused space. The technology also works in East Africa, on the biggest ground mount system for Williamson Tea in Kenya.

The solar system will also contribute to Garden City’s achievements in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

Villages could be powered with Cheap solar, wind or hydroelectricity

There are quite a few countries where energy infrastructure is not doing great. As a fallow-up, 1.4 billion people can’t enjoy the benefits of electric power. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, just 8% of the population in villages are connected to electricity. All that could become a past problem as mini-grids – localised generation, transmission and distribution of power can resolve that.

The good news is the fact that solar power in the African continent and parts of India are incredibly low nowadays. So, a mini-grid is a cheap way to go.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) has just been awarded a $5m low-cost loan to the government of Mauritania, a place where only 1% of rural locations are powered. This loan can pay for four powered fishing communities in Mauritania’s northern coast.

The people of Bellewakh, Lemcid, Loubeir and Lemhaijratt are now lighten by candles, kerosene lamps and car batteries. Moreover, in order to power their power refrigeration units, they use canisters of butane which are not safe. The recently developed mini-grid will be made of 18 wind turbines of 15kW and will provide electricity for households, schools, health facilities, civic buildings, a desalination plant to produce drinking water and an ice-making plant.

Frank Wouters, director of Irena believes that a project like this is always welcomed. His company has $50m a year to invest in low cost loans but the last year was an exception and reached a billion. Irena was able to help six projects and refuse 80.

If mini-grids are a fact but are now powered by diesel Wouters says it is now a no-brainer for them to switch to turn green: “Where people are using diesel to generate electricity any renewable source of energy is at the moment more cost effective.”

Hydroelectricty is by far the cheapest – where it is available – followed by windpower, and only then solar panels. A report by the Alliance for Rural Electrification says that towns could save up to 60% of their costs if they turned to hydroelectricity or 16% if they turned to solar.

The low costs of green power made a change in the marketplace. Until now, Wouter says the people believed “solar is nice for [communities that are] off-grid, but it’s expensive, but that is not true anymore. It’s now cheap as well as being reliable, clean and low maintenance.”

So what is the problem with green mini-grids?

Wouters thinks that the first challenge the awareness of the low prices “When something halves in price every two years it’s hard to catch up, but I think that we’ve reached the point where people understand. “There is a big focus by the Asia Development Bank on mini-grids and the Islamic Development Bank; all the development banks are looking at this as a very interesting, scalable opportunity for them to put their money to work.”

Moreover, there is no infrastructure in some places.

Still, African savings are growing. And as Wouters says, every issue that comes together with the development will not disappear just like that, but the solutions are not so expensive anymore.