Rural Africa Looks Beyond the Grid

Economic gowth, plunging PV prices and an improving business ecosystem could spark the long-awaited takeoff of off-grid renewables in sub-Saharan Africa.

LONDON — In picking South Africa for last year’s meet-up, the COP-17 climate change talks prompted some inevitable grumbles. Why was the global climate change industry holding its jamboree in a country that, despite its commitment to renewables, pumps out so much CO2?

In fact, South Africa’s coal-heavy energy mix held out some powerful attractions for COP-17 delegates. Attendees could risk substantial lifestyle compromises by picking anywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa, where the IEA found that electricity consumption of 791 million people totalled 40 TWh in 2010  — the same as New York State’s 19.5 million inhabitants. Even in South Africa, about 30% of the population still relies on biomass and paraffin for their energy needs. Across the entire region, though, the IEA estimates that only 30.5% of the population has access to electricity  – with the excluded 585 million overwhelmingly based in rural areas.

Skipping the Grid

Yet sub-Saharan Africa is also seen as a promising context for renewables. An analogy with the region’s adoption of mobile phones suggests sub-Saharan Africa could dispense with polluting, grid-connected power plants – just as it skipped landline telephones — and move straight into distributed generation from renewables.(..)

Yet arguments for off-grid renewables clearly gain force in sparsely populated regions where the alternatives are so costly in terms of cash, the environment and even time — with women walking 5-10 km a day with loads of up to 30 kg of firewood in some parts of Tanzania, according to UNIDO.(..)

Renewables vs Diesel

Even without this transformation in funding and regulation, renewable energy can already undercut its traditional rivals such as diesel and kerosene, Cohen claims. ‘It doesn’t cost more: it costs less — if you look at the World Bank numbers or other numbers, they are outdated.(..)

In other financial aspects, though, renewables offer clear advantages over diesel or kerosene. ‘You put them in a spot. And it works. So the payback period is not seven years, as we have in Europe. We can talk about three — and even less, depending where.’

‘Yes, costs are coming down at an astonishing rate, partly due to the availability of lower-cost panels from China, and also due to an increased demand for such products. Additionally, the cost of LED bulbs has decreased significantly in the last 3-4 years, which has a knock-on effect for the microsolar lighting market.’

Renewable energy will play ‘a major role’ in meeting sub-Saharan Africa’s power shortfall, said Rohit Khanna, programme manager of ESMAP, which helps low- and middle-income countries develop sustainable energy. ‘Because off-grid and mini-grid renewables are cost-effective in remote areas, they could provide access to electricity for substantial numbers of people in Africa currently without power. In particular, stand-alone off-grid renewables which do not require transmission and distribution networks can power essential services such as lights, cell phones, vaccine refrigerators and low-lift water pumps in low-density rural areas.

In one key respect, a simple comparison of costs between renewables and diesel is muddied by the poverty of the rural communities that off-grid power projects must target. Solar power may be cheaper than kerosene in the longer term, but initial investment costs rule it out for many in Africa, says Howes. ‘The main barrier is financial,’ she says. ‘People can buy kerosene as and when they need it in tiny amounts. A solar lamp is a very big upfront cost.’’(..)

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