The Race to Solar Power Africa

[EndDomination]

The Race to Solar-Power Africa

But many Western entrepreneurs see solar power in Africa as a chance to reach a large market and make a substantial profit. This is a nascent industry, which, at the moment, represents a small percentage of the electrification in the region, and is mostly in rural areas. There’s plenty of uncertainty about its future, and no guarantee that it will spread at the pace of cell phones. Still, in the past eighteen months, these businesses have brought electricity to hundreds of thousands of consumers—many of them in places that the grid failed to reach, despite a hundred-year head start. Funding, much of it from private investors based in Silicon Valley or Europe, is flowing into this sector—more than two hundred million dollars in venture capital last year, up from nineteen million in 2013—and companies are rapidly expanding their operations with the new money. M-Kopa, an American startup that launched in Kenya, in 2011, now has half a million pay-as-you-go solar customers; d.light, a competitor with offices in California, Kenya, China, and India, says that it is adding eight hundred new households a day. Nicole Poindexter, the founder and C.E.O. of Black Star, told me that every million dollars the company raises in venture capital delivers power to seven thousand people. She expects Black Star to be profitable within the next three years.

Like many of the American entrepreneurs I met in Africa, Poindexter has a background in finance. A graduate of Harvard Business School, she worked as a derivatives trader before leading business development at Opower, a software platform for utilities customers that was acquired by Oracle last year. (Unlike many of these entrepreneurs, who tend to skew white and male, Poindexter is African-American.) She decided to start the company in 2015, after she began to learn about energy poverty. She recalled watching TV coverage of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. “There was a lot of coughing in the background, and I was thinking, That’s someone with Ebola,” she said. “But it wasn’t. It was from the smoke in the room from the fire.” Last year, in the Ghanaian community of Kofihuikrom, one of the first towns that Black Star served, the company erected twenty-two solar panels. Today, the local clinic no longer has to deliver babies by flashlight. The town chief, Nana Kwaku Appiah, said that he was so excited that he initially left his lights on inside all night. “Our relatives from the city used to not come here to visit,” he said. “Now they do.”

Very interesting article. My focus was on the expansion of solar power in Nigeria. The mass-urbanization, and the flow of wealth through many of its main cities seems like the perfect opportunity to start a few mass private and public ventures regarding solar energy. Lagos runs on generators, but why?

 

[Dr. Hibbert's Revenge]

"western entrepreneurs", huh?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Interesting story, but African countries can't industrialize if they have thousands of micro-grids.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

The Race to Solar-Power Africa


Very interesting article. My focus was on the expansion of solar power in Nigeria. The mass-urbanization, and the flow of wealth through many of its main cities seems like the perfect opportunity to start a few mass private and public ventures regarding solar energy. Lagos runs on generators, but why?

Lagos runs on generators because of the policies of the Nigerian government. Nigeria is rich in natural gas. It has coal deposits in the Middle Belt and South East. It has oil in the Niger Delta. It has the Niger and Benue rivers along with its associated resevoirs. It has solar and wind energy - and yet it generates less power than the city of Edinburgh

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

@Thomas - This thread is a great discussion point to talk about electrifying the African continent.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

11 paths to electrifying Africa

11 paths to electrifying Africa
Economies boom all over the continent but power cuts hamper growth. Our panel suggests how to boost progress

Are fossil fuels or renewables the solution to Africa's energy crisis? Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
Shares
38
Comments
1
Anna Leach

@avleachy
Tuesday 13 May 2014 16.01 BSTFirst published on Tuesday 13 May 2014 16.01 BST

Joshua Pierce, co-founder, Off.Grid:Electric, Arusha, Tanzania, @offgridE
Harness the sun: Since Africa's off-grid population is growing, not shrinking, and average GDP is still well behind much of the rest of the world, the focus to achieve electrical access for all needs to be bringing of basic, essential services in the most efficient and mass-deployable method possible.

In our opinion, this starts with fully, or near fully distributed solar. It's not the only solution, but we could light every home in Africa in a decade with distributed solar. There is no reason solar needs to have a high up-front cost. The most successful models for solar in the US are all low-cost lease programmes. The same can be true for Africa.

The market is driving energy: When the first green energy company makes $100m in profit delivering renewable energy that will be a massive incentive. The greatest catalyst for growth will be unlocking massive investment. It happened with the mobile industry, it will happen with energy. Hate to sound so capitalist about it, but now 80% of Africans have a phone. That's massive positive impact, driven by the market.

Rolake Akinkugbe, head of energy and natural resources coverage, FBN Capital, Lagos, Nigeria, @rolakeakinkugbe
Don't force Africa to go green: The debate around the low-carbon benefit should be contextualised. Africa as a whole, is an extremely small contributor to global emissions (less than 3% of the total), but is affected the most by big western and Bric [Brazil, Russia, India, China] emitters. So the debate should really begin in the west if you ask me. We need to be weary about imposing green policies on Africa.

African countries should join forces on energy: Encourage African governments to pool regional energy resources. Full regional integration would save energy costs by up to 20%.

Djimingue Nanasta, programme manager, ENDA Energy, Dakar, Senegal, @djimnasta
Civil society has a role: Encouraging private-public and civil society partnerships would help and at ENDA, having experienced this kind of partnership, we can encourage others to engage in it.

Elizabeth O'Grady, business development associate, PowerGen Renewable Energy, Nairobi, Kenya
Governments can plug in the power: African governments must put policies into place that incentivise increased power generation and distribution. Governments do not have nearly enough capital to implement all of the necessary projects on their own, so they must find ways to leverage private funds.

Bob Bruce, electricity supply industry advisor, west Africa, Glenton Bruce Energy Consultants, Perthshire, UK
Investors need more incentive: Private investment seems to mean anything that is not government funded. Investors need manageable risks and adequate returns and we have to face the fact that investment in power in Africa does not score highly in either area on the world scale.

Davit Davitian, director, international business development, SolePower, Pittsburgh, USA, @solepowertech
Consider alternatives: Expanding the electrical grid as is right now has been proven to be difficult and expensive. Without a dedicated financial investment and an alternative mindset for how users will gain access (ie pay-as-you-go), reaching universal electricity by 2030 will be very difficult. For electricity to reach everyone, alternative energy is the most efficient way of getting electricity to rural areas.

Don Niss, deputy coordinator, Power Africa and Trade Africa, USAid, Washington, DC
Business is paramount: Private sector funding will be key in terms of the various goals outlined by people on this panel discussion. For Power Africa, private sector partners have committed to providing over $14bn.

John Heath, senior power sector adviser, Adam Smith International, Ripon, UK, @heathwillow
Off-grid is not the solution: While micro-utilities based on renewable sources are the way forward for much of rural Africa, the economic needs of Africa's growing cities and engines of growth will call for effective grids and a diversity of sources. Even rural Africa may come to need grid connections if Africa is to realise its full potential in agriculture and reduce pressures on land. And so the problem of management and control of grid supplies has to be solved – and that is political first, and then managerial and technical.

Jen Olson, deputy director, US government relations, ONE, Washington DC, USA, @jsolson
Advertisement
The power of energy: A lack of access to modern energy traps millions of people in poverty and limits economic growth. Health facilities that serve an estimated 255 million people do not have electricity. Lifesaving vaccines spoil due to lack of reliable refrigeration. A lack of access contributes to the use of inefficient and highly polluting fuel sources for indoor cooking and heating, contributing to more than three million premature deaths – more than from malaria and HIV/Aids combined. 90 million children go to primary schools without electricity and millions have no light to study at night. Students in Sudan were able to improve their pass rates from 57% to 97% after one year with electric lights. Farmers lose their harvest to spoilage. Streets aren't safe for women and children after dark.

 

[EndDomination]

"western entrepreneurs", huh?

Not all of them are White, though I completely understand the apprehension; there's always a hint of colonialism whenever you have wealthy people from one country profiting off of a significantly poorer portion of a different country.
If entrepreneurs don't fill the void, no one will.
I'd prefer each of the companies that come train the local workforce, and essentially expand their business while giving them a portion of the company, that way its both sustainable and loses the lens of sheer exploitation.