How Africa Might Change The World
By: Mamun Ju
Tags: Nature, Politics, Climate Change, Energy, Environment

How Africa Might Change

The World

It’s both a question and a statement

Photo by Doug Linstedt on Unsplash

In 2018 the U.N. goals of solving energy poverty in Africa by 2030 are hardly on track to be met. The goal is to provide electricity to 600 million people in Africa who don’t currently have access to it using the least cost method possible.

The major barriers to this goal inertia, aversion to change, corruption, political ineptitude, and a lack of knowledge about the energy sector among political and community leaders. Border, religious, and tribal conflicts don’t help either.

Some nations may need to cooperate in the future if a solution is to be found. The debate to hurdle the current barriers revolves around who should pay for the electrification of Africa and what type of energy should be used.

Then there are the ongoing payments to consider giving the levels of poverty in many African nations. Finally, Africa will ultimately need a solution to future transport systems that currently rely on diesel fuel.

Look at Electrification.

Fuel poverty in Africa has massive implications. It means that many families use biomass to cook often in ventilated accommodation that burns kerosene lamps which also emits indoor pollution. If they can’t afford it they use diesel generators to power electrical equipment. These all have health and financial impacts on the quality of their lives.

Notice both diesel and kerosene are oil-based products. There are three ways to solve the African fuel poverty crisis.

Each African nation could simply extend its national grid into rural areas. They could build many smart grids consisting of power generation like solar Panel battery storage, automated computer control, and transmission capacities. These are ideal for households and businesses of grids or integrated with a national grid. They could also invest in standalone systems however big or small perhaps to solve individuals' needs. These could be upgraded and integrated with a smart grid at a later date.

These three methods all have a part to play where you go to look at which one is the least costly.

The International Energy Agency in 2017 estimated that smart grids could serve two hundred nineteen million people by 2030 and has the least cost option. Although free choices were mentioned earlier. Smart mini-grids are self-sufficient electricity grids that process their own power generation usually in the form of micro renewable energy such as solar, battery storage, and the ability to transmit and share that power locally.

One household can be generating energy whilst the number utilizes its power when there is a demand. Alternatively, unused energy can be stored to be used at night time if the system is large enough.

This can do away with the need to use diesel generators in homes or eliminate the need to use biomass to cook. In other words, it is cheaper to put in smart mini-grids than it is to extend the national grid into a particular area.

Also, it can be achieved at such a low cost that governments could easily persuade utility companies to help fund it. They make the ultimate cost savings in the future it can be connected to extensions to the national grid that may occur as the country economically develops.