Solar Power: The future of electricity for remote communities?
By: Simbi Foundation
Tags: Nonprofit, Simbi Foundation, Fossil Fuels, Solar, Renewable Energy

Solar Power: The future of electricity for remote communities?

Hans Zhang MSc (Electrical Engineering) is an Energy Analyst at Powerex and a solar power researcher in Simbi Foundation’s Think Tank. We spoke with Hans about how to conceptualize renewable power, a world without dirty energy, and whether solar has the potential to provide electricity to the 789 million people (the vast majority in remote areas) who currently live without it.

Illustration by Icons 8 from Icons8

Hi Hans. How are you?

I’m doing great, thanks!

Paint a picture for us. Why is renewable energy so important, especially for remote communities?

Renewable energy is one of the best ways for remote and under-resourced communities to have greater access to education and other central services — without it, there’s really no viable or sustainable alternatives to run technologies because of how remote these locations are in terms of electricity access and infrastructure.

As well as being free from recurring energy costs, solar is also pretty reliable in the right context. You just have to make sure that if you’re in a dusty area, for example, the solar panels are cleaned every so often because that will affect how much energy you can generate. But other than presuming everything’s set up well, and that you’re working with suppliers who can troubleshoot when needed, solar systems are more or less self-sufficient.

As a Think Tank researcher, you’ve worked with Simbi Foundation in refugee settlements in Uganda — does what you’re describing apply to that context?

For sure. Generally speaking, access to electricity for populations in that region is a challenge. In Uganda, only around 30–40% of the population has access to electricity, and that’s partly due to the lack of power lines and other transmission equipment to get the power to remote areas. That’s why solar power has so much potential, because you can basically put the equipment in the back of a truck, drive it to wherever you need it, and then deploy it, bringing power to a community in a very cheap and effective way.

Solar power is also extremely advantageous in this context because of how much sunlight Eastern Africa gets every day, so you’re consistently getting a lot of charging capacity. There’s rarely more than one day of consecutive overcast weather, so that drastically cuts down on the cost of the equipment because there’s no need to oversize the batteries to account for days without sunlight, since they’re so sparse.

So it seems like providing solar power in certain contexts can be done at a relatively affordable cost. Despite this, the cost of renewable tech versus fossil fuels is often cited as a barrier to a global shift towards renewables. With that in mind, do you think we’ll ever live in a world free of dirty energy? And what needs to happen for us to get there?

I do think we’ll eventually get there, but I think that a lot of people underestimate our reliance on fossil fuels. There’s also the issue that clean energy right now is not really dependable or reliable without a way of storing it on a utility scale, so we’re always going to need to have “unclean energy” to serve nations with mass populations. Until we get larger-scale batteries into service, that’s what we’re still going to be relying on.

Some of the tech is still expensive. So I also think that, in the future, energy companies are going to be developing bigger and better technologies that will really expand the reach of solar power and support even more vulnerable and underserved communities. This should make solar a more feasible energy source elsewhere.

COVID-19 has obviously had an effect on the advancement towards global renewables, as well as connecting remote regions to electricity, but I wanted to ask if you think COVID-19 has changed people’s attitudes towards renewable energy?

I think in general, there isn’t that much change, although I would say that energy demands have reduced by around 5–10% during COVID, just from people not moving around as much, and that’s also indirectly affected how much fossil fuel people use for travel and gasoline. We are on that trajectory of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, but, as I said, we’re still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Yes, that dependence might have tapered off a little bit because of COVID, but I don’t think that renewables are going to catch up in that same amount of time. All in all, maybe people’s attitudes have indirectly shifted towards renewable energy during this time.

That’s an interesting take on it. To finish up, can you briefly share some details about the Solar Research project from Simbi Foundation’s Think Tank, and what you’re hoping to achieve?

Right now, we’re working on collecting data from the BrightBox solar classroom that was deployed in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, Northern Uganda, last year. We’re hoping to gain insights into how the students are using the infrastructure and whether it’s adequately powering all the equipment inside. With that information, we’re hoping to optimize future installations in the settlement. So, if students are using it too frequently, and the battery is getting drained too quickly, maybe we’ll increase the size of the system — and vice versa if it’s not being utilized as much as we expected.

What impact has the project had on you?

I think this project has definitely opened my eyes to the potential of renewable energy. Learning about community needs, being able to set something up relatively quickly and relatively cheaply in a remote area, and then providing access to essential services, was all really powerful.

Thanks, Hans!