# The Role of Renewable Energy Sources and Industry 4.0 Focus for Africa: A Review
## 4 Challenges Facing Industry 4.0 Actualization in Africa and Proposed Remedies  
Given that the 4 IR will focus more on improvements to communication, data analysis, and manufacturing, one needs to be mindful of the fact that a large number of countries on the African content lack these three elements. As such, should 4 IR be used as a grassroots mechanism to aid African countries in developing, and the same must be used to create an energy economy? At the time of authoring, IFIs are making large quantities of money available to governments in African countries to develop renewable energy generation. Still, the need for critical energy economy components is being ignored. This means the grants go unused, or a power plant is built and commissioned and then does not operate. An energy economy consists of three primary facets, each linked to the other, as shown in Figure 10:  
The missing components in most assessments of need in the African continent come down to a lack of energy demand, inadequate energy supply infrastructure, or a combination of these components. There needs to be sufficient demand to warrant such expenditure to justify installing larger-scale energy generation solutions. Additionally, should both supply and demand be present, adequate supply infrastructure is necessary to satisfy the demand. In Africa, however, this is the biggest problem. Since many countries in Africa still need to adopt technologies introduced by 2 IR and 3 IR, there needs to be more demand on a continental scale, except South Africa, which has 41 GW of generation capacity. In contrast, other countries only require a fraction of South Africa's generation capacity, mainly due to a lack of manufacturing and industry, either brought on by general poverty or political instability. Therefore, before introducing large-scale renewable energy facilities, the focus needs to be placed on smaller, decentralized facilities to advance education and innovation in rural communities. Demand can be created due to the increasing needs of the people in these areas. This is where 4 IR can be extremely helpful. It has been noted above that the primary issues associated with deploying renewable energy technology are the requirement for sustainable supply and effective distribution networks. In the traditional sense, distribution  
Figure 10: Basics of an energy economy. networks are costly and would require demand to be present to justify the investment, as discussed previously. That said, energy can also be distributed and quantified in discrete packages. More specifically, battery technology can be used (BESS or Battery Energy Storage Systems). Much like the cycling-to-energy concept, wherein small rechargeable devices are facilitated via inputting energy into the system, the same idea can be applied in rural applications. Smaller installations of renewable energy technology with a suitable BESS allow for the introduction of 4 IR technologies in rural communities to aid in skills development in these communities and inspire innovation and growth. The innovation and growth aspect can allow a community to use rudimentary energy forms to outpace the decentralized installations mentioned earlier and create a demand case for these communities. Should the demand case exist, appropriately sized BESS can also be deployed with the larger renewable energy installations to provide constant access to energy and empower local communities to develop and thrive. To drive the smaller-scale aspects required to realize this vision, 4 IR can achieve the same. Small energy systems that allow for the lighting and operation of essential construction equipment will enable productivity. At the same time, communication technologies, such as cell phones and tablets, can provide access to other people and information, which can be used to educate communities about the uses of technologies such as 3D printers.