The Power Africa Off-Grid Energy Challenge launched in July by the US African Development Foundation (USADF) and GE Africa has seen six companies from Kenya and Nigeria emerge winners.
The winners were unveiled at a grand gala event held in Lagos, Nigeria recently with each company set to receive grants of up to US$ 100,000 in support of their initiatives.
The GE USADF Off-grid Energy Challenge was launched In Kenyan and Nigeria this year with plans to expand to other African countries over the next 3 years.
The three Kenyan firms include Solar World Limited, Afrisol Energy Limited and Mibawa Suppliers.
Each of the firms presented different proposals with Solar World submitting a proposal to construct five solar-powered water points in Samburu County in Northern Kenya while Afrisol Energy Limited’s entry was a proposal for the construction of a bio-digester to produce electricity and biogas in the slums of Nairobi. Mibawa Suppliers’ proposal was to distribute IndiGo lights using an innovative ‘rent to own’ model, to replace kerosene lamps for low-income households in rural areas.
The Nigerian winner firms include Trans Africa Gas and Electric, GVE Projects Limited and Afe Babalola University. GVE Projects designed an 18 KW solar-powered mini-grid that can reach about 140 homes in the Egbeke community of Rivers state.
Trans Africa Gas and Electric entry was a standalone cold storage facility to allow farmers to cool and store their produce before bringing it to market. Afe Babalola University, plans to generate 2.5 megawatts of electricity through a renewable hydro-electric power system that will serve over 10,000 members of the university community and beyond.
General Electric (GE) teamed up with the U.S. Africa Development Foundation (USADF) to launch this competition in order to address the needs of marginalised African communities not reached by the national grid.
GE Africa President and CEO Jay Ireland said they are excited about the high caliber of entrants and the innovativeness in the solutions presented to the Off-Grid Energy Challenges in the respective countries.
USADF President and CEO Shari Berenbach said the judges carefully evaluated more than 150 applications to arrive at the eventual winners adding that they looked out for applications that demonstrated new business models to deliver sustainable, renewable energy to underserved, marginalized populations.
She disclosed that more than 50 percent of the applications involved some form of solar energy, while others were based on hydro, wind, and bio-fuels, among others. According to Shari, companies whose products demonstrate creativity and innovative approaches to metering, payment, collections or transmission also received special attention.
The three-year programme which will cost US$2 million will award 20 or more grants of up to US$ 100,000 each to African companies and organizations providing off-grid solutions that deploy renewable resources and power economic activities.
The competition is part of the Power Africa initiative announced by President Barack Obama during his recent visit to Africa. The Power Africa initiative seeks to drive growth in Africa by increasing access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable power and by helping to ensure responsible, transparent and effective management of energy resources on the continent.
Electrical power is a key ingredient for sustainable economic development not only for large industrial concerns but also for rural economic activity in the form of small cottage industries and agricultural development. For too long energy in Africa has remained a scarce commodity with nearly 70 percent of its people lacking access to electricity and condemning many to live below the poverty line. Just to show how far behind Africa is Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, generates only 28 GW of power, roughly equal to the generation capacity of Argentina.
Africa’s energy deficiency has led the World Bank to declare 25 African nations to be in energy crisis as energy development has not kept pace with rising demand, placing a huge strain on the continent’s existing resources. In addition to inadequate power generation, approximately a quarter is unavailable at any given time because of poor infrastructure reliability and insufficient capacity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says Africa will require more than US$300 billion in investment to achieve universal electricity access by 2030.
The continent has huge, solar, wind, solar, geothermal and hydro energy resources which have not been exploited. However, all is not lost as the above initiative and other various energy projects being undertaken by various countries point to a bright future as the continent rushes to plug up the energy gap.
Wind power
Wind power is one of the world’s fastest-growing energy resources and Africa is likely to experience a huge boost in installed capacity over the next few years. A recent study by the African Development Bank (AfDB) indicates that while wind power on the continent currently makes up only 1 percent (1 GW) of total electricity there is an additional 10.5 GW in the pipeline.
Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Mauritania, Egypt, Madagascar, Kenya and Chad have large onshore wind energy potential. Exploring 76 African wind energy projects, AfDB’s study found that only 24 are completed. Of the completed projects, 74 percent are located in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia which collectively accounted for 99 percent of total installed capacity at the end of 2010.
In October 2013, Ethiopia launched Africa’s largest wind farm, US$290 million Ashegoda Wind Farm, in efforts to diversify electricity generation from hydropower plants and help the country become a major regional exporter of energy. The Ashegoda Wind Farm is the second of such project in the country after the 51 MW Adama I wind farm, which began production in 2011.
Morocco wants to meet 42 percent of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2020 and has launched a plan to produce 4,000 MW with wind power supplying 2,000 MW of the total. The country’s southern Tarfaya region will he home to Africa’s largest wind farm set to open in 2014.
In September 2013, the 138 MW Jeffreys Bay wind farm project, one of the largest wind farms under construction in South Africa, began erecting sixty wind turbines. The project is one of the first wind farms arising from the South African government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPP). The wind farm is expected to start supplying electricity to the national grid by mid 2014. Meanwhile, MetroWind’s 80 million kWh/year Van Stadens Wind Farm has come on line at the Metrowind Van Stadens wind farm, near Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape.
Tanzania’s Singida region will see construction commence on the first phase of 150 MW wind farm in 2014. In Kenya, work on US$828 million Lake Turkana Wind Project (LTWP), the largest of its kind in Africa, is set to start in April 2014 after the African Development Bank (AfDB) issued US$23.3million, guarantee for part of the project.
In 2010, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and African Development Bank (AfDB) agreed to provide US$61 million to design, build and operate onshore wind farms on four islands in the Cape Verde archipelago. The project will provide over 28MW of electricity generating capacity and help Cape Verde reach its target of ensuring that 25 percent of local power needs are provided by renewable energy by 2012 and 50 percent by 2020.
Geothermal
A huge amount of untapped geothermal energy may soon be developed along the Great Rift Valley, a 6,000 kilometer terrain stretching from Syria to Mozambique. In East Africa alone the region’s Rift Valley has geothermal reserves with a potential to provide up to 15,000 MW of power. This can considerably reverse Africa’s chronic energy shortages.
So far the high up-front costs associated with geothermal exploration coupled with perceived political, economic and regulatory risks have been the primary barriers to geothermal energy development in East Africa. But this is changing. The recent launch of the US$67million East African Geothermal Risk Mitigation Facility, a partnership between the African Union Commission and the German development agency KfW to provide matching grants for exploration, will help to reduce many of the upfront, exploration risks.
At the same time, governments and international donors alike have demonstrated a renewed interest in promoting the development of East Africa’s clean and renewable geothermal energy resources. In 2012, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) launched a new international energy partnership to help bring U.S. geothermal industry expertise and companies into the rapidly expanding East African geothermal market.
Experts estimate that Kenya alone has a potential of 10,000 MW. A part Kenya’s vast geothermal energy located at the Great Rift has more than enough power to light up the entire nation. Olkaria I and IV 280 MW plant is on course and the first unit of Olkaria IV 140MW is expected to be commissioned in December 2013 with the second Unit coming online in March 2014.
Drilling of 80 wells for the 560MW geothermal power projects is also on course. Kenya plans to install some 1,700 MW of geothermal capacity within the next 10 years, 150 percent of the country’s total electricity generating capacity.
Ethiopia has so far signed a preliminary agreement with a US-Icelandic firm for a US$4 billion private sector investment intended to tap its vast geothermal power resources. The aims to construct a 1, 000 MW geothermal power plant, Africa’s largest, in the volcanically active Rift Valley. Djibouti plans to supply nearly all of its electricity needs through geothermal energy.
Tanzania is also working on a geothermal component that would catalyse the development of more than 100 MW of geothermal power, while also establishing an enabling environment for large-scale geothermal development.
Solar
Technology advances are opening up a huge new market for solar power in Africa. Solar power costs half as much as lighting with kerosene with an estimated 3 million households in Africa getting power from small solar PV systems. With the continent’s abundant solar resource, 0.3 percent of the sunlight that shines on the Sahara and Middle East deserts could supply all of Europe’s energy needs and Britain and France have supported plans to build a US$64 billion “super grid” that would connect renewable energy resources across Europe and Africa.
Mauritania is home to Africa’s biggest operational 15MW solar power plant. Meanwhile more than 30,000 very small solar panels, each producing 12 to 30 watts, are sold in Kenya annually and the government has demonstrated its commitment to the promotion of the renewable energy projects through the enactment of enabling and facilitative policy instruments including the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) policy. East Africa’s largest solar power plant will be switched on in December in Kenya’ Kericho County.
The plant will generate 1MW of electricity and is expected to trigger development of large solar generation projects. Earlier this year, the region’s largest operating solar plant, a 72 kilowatt plant was commissioned in Laikipia County. Additional planned, medium and large scale solar power projects include a 30 kW project in Ruiru and a 4.1MW project by the upcoming Garden City along Thika superhighway,
Mauritius has signed a deal worth US$64.6 million as it seeks to generate 60 MW of renewable energy in the next two years. In May 2013, Ghana inaugurated a US$2million 2MW solar power plant at Navrongo in the Upper East Region. There are plans to expand solar power to 2.5 MW.
Elsewhere, the first of three solar projects awarded to global solar energy provider Scatec Solar under the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) has come on line. Scatec successfully connected its Northern Cape-based 75 MW solar photovoltaic Kalkbult plant to the regional grid. The company expects to complete the remaining two solar projects – one based in the Eastern Cape and the other in the Northern Cape by mid 2014. The 135 million kilowatt hours a year enough to power 33,000 South African households will be sold through a 20 year power purchase agreement with State-owned power utility Eskom. Eskom is seeking to develop 115MW solar power plant to be operational by end of 2014.
Hydro
Hydroelectric offers a largely untapped source of energy in the middle of the continent of which only 7percent are presently developed. However, in the recent past some countries have embarked on hydro projects in a move to try and utilize this resource.
DR Congo aims to become home to the world’s biggest hydroelectric project; the Inga falls on the Congo River. Construction works of the 39,000 MW, US$12 billion project will take approximately six years to complete with South Africa already having signed an agreement to buy over half of the power generated by the first phase of the project.
Ethiopia hasn’t been left behind as it aims to invest a staggering US$12billion, over the next decade, in power projects that will generate 20, 000 MW enabling the country to achieve energy sufficiency and export to neighbouring countries. Ethiopia is currently constructing the 6,000MW, US$4.8billion Grand Renaissance dam on the Nile River. Experts put Ethiopia’s hydropower potential at around 45, 000 MW.
Zambia is looking to kick-start construction of the 750 MW Kafue Gorge lower hydro power project. The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has also approved US$340 million funding for the 80MW hydroelectric project as part of the Great Lakes regional initiative. The mega project at Rusumo Falls, 117 kilometres southeast of Kigali, will see transmission lines extending from the power station to Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Commissioning of Ghana’s 400 MW Bui Hydro Electric project will take place sometime before the end of 2013 with Uganda having embarked on the construction of 183 MW Isimba hydro-power station on River Nile. This comes after the successful completion and commisioning of 250MW Bujagali Hydropower Plant. Elsewhere, the 147 MW Ruzizi III project Hydropower Plant on the Ruzizi River bordering DRC and Rwanda to be developed through a concession by a private investor will become operational in 2016.
Other hydro projects in Africa are the 64MW Mount Coffee hydroelectric project in Liberia, Malawi’s 160 to 370MW Kholombidzo hydroelectric project on the Shire River, Cameroon’s 30MW Lom Pangar hydroelectric project, Gambia’s 128MW Sambangalou and 240MW Kaleta hydroelectric projects and 1,677 kilometers of transmission lines in Africa’s Gambia River Basin, Morocco’s turnkey construction of the 45MW M’dez and 125MW El Menzel hydropower projects on Morocco’s Sebou River among many others.
If Africa is to rise up to the challenge, energy solutions through partnerships in regional interconnection, electricity generation, transmission, distribution and energy efficiency will need to be given priority in order to bring reliable, environmentally-sound power to more people across Africa.
