This is an archival version of the original KnowledgePoint website.

Interactive features have been disabled and some pages and links have been removed.

Visit the new KnowledgePoint website at https://www.knowledgepoint.org.

 
0

Who out there is developing renewable energy microgrids to provide access to electricity in remote areas?

Samuelkisumu
related country: Kenya
KnowledgePointAdmin
RedR CCDRR
related country: Kenya

Despite this being a very hot topic right now it also seems to be very fragmented, with disparate groups of donors, private investors, NGOs, government bodies and practitioners all beavering away on their own, often re-inventing the wheel. We're looking to try and bring some of these disparate parties together to try and work out how these projects can best be financed, best-practise can be shared and generally we can all be a little more aligned and efficient. Thoughts welcomed.


6 Answers

0

In Ginuea-Bissau the NGO TESE is doing microgrids with EDP.

TESE - https://tese.trtcode.com/

EDP - https://www.fundacaoedp.pt/acesso-a-en...

0
richardkizito297

Thanks for this discussion on this network. Who is that you mean, is her/she real understanding this collaboration. How best can we target them, is this a right platform. All these are the issue to undertake. This is quite some thing worthy a credit if it happens to have them united as a common striking point for rural and poor communities to benefit from this collaborations The technology is ready for adoption but challenges occurs out many dimensions among them is " skills, communication etc. Am one of those willing to unite for a common goal changing communities.

Comments

Hi Richard

If you have further question regarding mini-grids, I would happy to answer as much as I can or put you in contact with those who can!

Regards Rosina (email rosina.norton11@gmail.com)

RosinaLouise gravatar imageRosinaLouise ( 2015-08-24 09:38:00 )
0
Neil Noble
Energy

Rosina Norton of the Light Year Foundation tells me that in Kenya and some other east African countries, PowerGen and Power Hive are both installing solar mini-grids. Southampton University has an energy for development (E4D) department which has three working mini-grids in operation for research purposes. IBM Africa are also doing research in that area (Nairobi Research Centre) and finally the renewable energy consultancy African Solar Designs Ltd have done a lot of work consulting governments and NGOs on this topic.

Rosina also says "One model for a mini-grids which I think is really interesting is the ABC model which works on the basis that there is a larger anchor load (A) which uses >50% of the generated energy at a specific tariff to cover base load costs. then several surrounding business (B) have another tariff and finally, some of those businesses are selling solar lantern/offering charging facilities to the community (C)."

0

The following details were sent to me by Shannon Liburd, U.S. Department of State, Renewables & Environment.

The final 2014 mini-grid workshop website is https://www.esmap.org/node/55292and the report can be accessed by clicking the "Final Workshop Report" hyperlink on the webpage or by directly entering the following link in your browser: https://www.esmap.org/sites/esmap.org...

And the World Bank mini-grid report, "From The Bottom Up" can be found here: https://documents.worldbank.org/curate...

Concept for October mini-grid conference.pdf

0
Sebastian Rodriguez
KnowledgePointAdmin
RedR CCDRR

The NGO Millennium Promise and Columbia University have supported since 2009 the design and roll-out of 17 commercial micro-grids in Mali and Uganda. Their early experiences can be found here: www.sharedsolar.org . The main issue found was the development of smart metering and load control , and tariff collection through mobile money (where infrastructure exist) and/or local digital selling points (which is independent of telecom coverage).

Private investors have taken the technology developed to scale it commercially through a company called Sustainable Economy Solutions (SES) (www.sespbc.com). SES is a Public Benefit Corporation acting as ESCO or EPC in different countries depending of the policy. Their first project is being rolled out in Tanzania.

0
Richard Blanchard

As part of the USES network funded by DfID we built microgrids in Kenya and Bangladesh. These are DC battery swap systems in Kenya and DC grids in Bangladesh. As well as providing basic lighting, productive uses of energy was one of the goals. SONG PROJECT LINK

Question Tools
1 follower
Public thread

This thread is public, all members of KnowledgePoint can read this page.

Stats
Asked:
2015-08-17 07:55:35
Seen:
8,675 times
Last updated:
Dec 01 '17