News and feature articles on microgrids in Africa including RFP's, policies and players impacting the region.
Rocky Mountain Institute's Andrew Allee describes a problem arising out of electrification in Nigeria. Minigrids are bringing electricity to rural areas, but residents do not benefit if they cannot afford appliances. In early 2018, a solar minigrid installation transformed energy access in Gbamu Gbamu, a Nigerian town 45 minutes from the … [Read more...]
The World Bank expects a boom in Nigeria's minigrid sector as the multilateral development bank and Nigerian government introduce an auction as part of a five-year, $550 million minigrid tender. The tender is part of a minigrid and solar home electrification program that has been running since June. Speaking at an industry conference held … [Read more...]
Spurred on by a conversation with his father about the expense of operating an electric boiler for hot water, André Nel, founder of South Africa-based Eco-V, set out in search of a solution. That led to a technology, GreenTower, that uses hybrid solar microgrids to treat and heat borehole water. “The solution we have found a viable … [Read more...]
Kenya's government continues to forge ahead with an ambitious initiative for universal electrification and distributed energy, with state utility Kenya Power and Lighting (KPLC) launching a $6.7 million plan for 23 off-grid minigrids, the term used for microgrids in Africa. Twenty-seven solar-diesel minigrids are already up and running in … [Read more...]
It's said that necessity is the mother of invention, and that's the case in Zimbabwe where businesses and well-off residents are reportedly turning to off-grid minigrids and on-site solar, small wind and hydro-plus-storage systems in droves amid grid outages that can last 18 hours a day. The average cost per connection for minigrids in … [Read more...]
PowerGen Renewable Energy, a leading player in Sub-Saharan Africa's fledgling, but fast growing markets for microgrids, minigrids and micro-utilities, acquired the Tanzanian microgrid assets of another emerging market leader, Rafiki Power, aka E.ON Off-Grid Solutions. The acquisition furthers PowerGen Renewable Energy's goal of creating … [Read more...]
A solar-plus-storage microgrid in Lebanon is demonstrating a way the country can overcome its pollution and lack of energy access while boosting economic development. For a month running, Recycle Beirut and an adjacent residential building have been receiving all of the electricity they need with a microgrid that uses 100-kW of solar and a 100 … [Read more...]
Girls in Malawi, Africa now have a chance to get a good education thanks to a new microgrid. A solar array, capable of producing 6.6 kW during peak, will electrify the school campus, providing the lights and the energy to run computers, printers and TV screens. The “Sokola” school campus is in a mountainous area in Chitipa, Northern Malawi and it … [Read more...]
Minigrids and distributed renewable energy (DRE) promise to create much-needed employment as rural electrification ramps up in Nigeria, India and Kenya, according to a study, Powering Jobs Census 2019: The Energy Access Workforce. The report comes from Power for All, an organization of 250 business, finance, research and civil society … [Read more...]
Italian multinational energy corporation ENI is building an off-grid, solar-storage microgrid at an oil and gas facility in Tunisia and integrating it with existing, on-site natural gas generation. All the energy produced by the off-grid microgrid will be used to power the facility's upstream operations. Metka EGN, a wholly owned … [Read more...]
Rocky Mountain Institute’s Andrew Allee describes a problem arising out of electrification in Nigeria. Minigrids are electrifying rural areas, but residents do not benefit if they cannot afford appliances.
The electric power grid is undergoing one of the most fundamental changes since its inception over a century ago. And if the aim of a decentralized and digitalized grid is reliability and resilience, the digital tools used to design, test and integrate the components to achieve that end are of utmost importance. Download the new Microgrid Knowledge report, courtesy of Typhoon HIL, to learn more about how new tools and processes like Hardware in the Loop (HIL) testing and Model Based Engineering (MBE) can pave the way to a better microgrid.
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