Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.

According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia.

The Global Commission to End Energy Poverty met for the first time this week to set out plans to accelerate the UN’s sustainable development goal to ensure access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all people by 2030.

The commission, established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative and the Rockefeller Foundation, plans to bring together leading investors, utilities and policymakers to tackle energy poverty.

Under the initiative, the distributed networks would help connect homes, businesses and schools to small-scale solar power projects to deliver cheap, sustainable electricity that can help power local economic growth.

The commission includes government leaders, energy industry chief executives and representatives from major development organisations, including Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency.

Dr Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and formerly of the US agency for international development, said “a whole new way of thinking” about energy distribution was required.

“We cannot end poverty without successfully ending energy poverty,” said Shah.

“For 140 years we’ve had this mindset that energy access means building big power plants and connecting them to grids, and that’s how you provide electricity.

“Today, new technology frontiers, business models, and our knowledge of alternatives is so strong that this commission will be able to set out a new roadmap to end the energy access problem for 1 billion people across the globe.”

The commission also plans to help set up new regulation in developing countries to accelerate the rollout of new energy systems, and make the projects more attractive to international investors.

“If I want to start a small solar-powered mini-grid programme in a rural part of an under-served country, I could be prevented from actually providing power without permission from the state-owned utility which might own that business opportunity,” Shah explained.

“That’s one of many policy roadblocks that is preventing distributed solutions from really being easy to invest in.”

Shah will co-chair the commission alongside Dr Ernest Moniz, a former US energy secretary,and Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank.

Moniz warned that existing plans to end global energy poverty by 2030 are “not fast enough” and should be more ambitious.

“Twenty years ago, energy access might have been defined by having a 20-watt lightbulb. One doesn’t want to denigrate that – the shift from having no light to some light is major – but our ambition is more than that. We want energy access that allows for credible family, community and regional economic development. Frankly, we’d like it to allow for entrepreneurial activity too,” he said.

Moniz said that by relying on renewable energy, particularly solar power alongside batteries, developing nations should be able to attract investment in clean energy and rule out the need for future investments in coal-fired power plants. Adopting such methods could also halt the wood-burning that has led to mass deforestation in some countries, he said.

“Speaking personally, there is a lot of concern about a new round of investments in coal funded by Chinese development banks. There could be a lock-in of emissions for the future. We would rather see distributed [energy grid] architecture, including renewables, and potentially with a role for gas,” he said.

Shah added that economic development and the empowerment of women offered the best chance for a low-emissions future.

“If you’re a woman in rural Bihar and you’re able to all of a sudden access electricity, get a sewing machine, create an income, provide light for your daughter to study at night, it’s just transformational,” said Shah.

“We’ve seen the same thing in India and Myanmar and throughout Africa. This commission embarks upon this task with a huge amount of optimism and a real understanding of how important it is in the lives of so many people around the world.”

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Long-term sustainable growth and development in South Africa will require a transition away from the country’s current coal-intensive energy system and economy towards an economy backed by an environment-friendly and renewable energy system.

The country is highly dependent on coal and is energy intensive. This plays out in an economy marred by a considerably high level of unemployment and inequality. Therefore, a transition is needed, speakers said during an Southern Africa-Towards Inclusive Economic Development workshop, in Pretoria, on Wednesday.

The workshop explored scenarios for South Africa’s transition from a coal-intensive energy system and economy towards a climate-friendly and renewable energy system.

Speakers at the workshop noted that while there was no clear, concrete picture of what this future system would entail, it was vital that the country was planning to move towards such a system.
Speaking at the workshop, University of Cape Town economist Faaiqa Hartley emphasised the importance of including renewables in the country’s energy mix.

She indicated that when not constrained, renewable energy presented a source of primary production of electricity.

Moreover, she highlighted that renewables allowed for considerable decarbonisation of the power sector.

A replicable, scalable, world-class Smart City in Abuja that provides all inhabitants with flexible, affordable, and accessible multimodal options at the lowest carbon footprint is being planned.

We have identified a 40 hectares along the Abuja International Airport road to develop a sustainable modern city that will serve as a model for smart urban development, linking affordable housing with climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.

• The World Bank estimated that Nigeria’s housing deficit stood at 17m units as of 2013, the country will require $360bn to close its housing deficit. • Given the country’s current urbanisation trends, Nigeria is set to be the world’s third-mostpopulous country in the world by 2050 and the population of Abuja forecast to double over the same period. • Mixed-use development is a major opportunity in Nigeria at present.

• The lack of adequate, affordable housing is a challenge that undermines social inclusion, equality, people's health and well-being, as well as sustainability • 17 million units housing deficit • Nigerian Population to double in 2050. • Lack of 24/7 power supply.

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and technology-dependent, a new wave of smart applications is changing how we approach everyday activities. We are offering affordable circular economy powered Smart city in Abuja.

Abuja Smart City is a pilot project with the objective of demonstrating the viability of green cities in Nigeria with low carbon and climate resilient housing, infrastructure, public amenities and workplaces powered by clean energy in Abuja. We will develop a sustainable and prosperous urban mixed-use development with multiple green aspects incorporated within it, acting as a pilot to lead the way for further scaling up of Smart City projects in Nigeria. 

We will develop 800 stand-alone houses, 2000 flats, 100 commercial property in the city with green housing, infrastructure, mixed use, amenity, workplaces and small industries. Our target is the middleincome market that is expected to grow the fastest .
800 smart stand-alone houses, @ 50k USD per unit 2000 Flats, @25k USD  per unit 100 commercial property, @ 65K per unit 5 MW solar farm @ .20c Kwh 3 MW Biogas plant @.15KWh.

​The project will be carried out through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development under Contractor Finance Initiative. 
Lagos is taking the lead in supplying middle class housing  with a vast array of new projects on the way. Orange Island is doing 150 hectares of land in Lekki, at an estimated cost of US$ 111 million. It should accommodate 25 000 people and be completed by 2019.  Our  developments are led are private sector driven, targeting  the middle and low income earners, offering world class amenities and management, we plan to dominate this market with a demonstration in Abuja.

• Our project will enhance quality of health and basic services that other developers do not provide in Nigeria including water, sanitation, clean energy, and waste management. • We operate a circular economy. • We ensure 24/7 clean energy, energy efficiency buildings and efficient masterplan • We create green jobs and opportunities.
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The cost of producing hydrogen gas with renewables is likely to plummet in the coming decades, making one of the most radical technologies for reducing greenhouse gases economical.

That’s the conclusion of an analysis by BloombergNEF, which said the most abundant element is likely to play a growing role in reducing pollution from power producers and industry.

The findings add to the potential for widespread use of hydrogen. While the gas has been hailed for decades as a carbon-free energy source, the cost and difficulty of making it has confined it mainly to niches like fueling rockets and helping upgrade blends of oil.

“Once the industry scales up, renewable hydrogen could be produced from wind or solar power for the same price as natural gas in most of Europe and Asia,” Kobad Bhavnagri, BNEF’s head of special projects, said in the report on Wednesday. “These production costs would make green gas affordable and puts the prospects for a truly clean economy in sight.”
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If produced on a large scale, hydrogen could feed into a range of applications, fueling long-haul transport and steelmaking and the manufacture of cement. Each of those industries requires the sort of energy hydrogen packs, delivering temperatures hot enough to melt metal and stone.

Those industries that are finding it difficult to remove emissions. Hydrogen can also be stored, shipped and used to produce electricity or fed into fuel cells that are increasingly appearing in cars and small power plants.

BNEF looked at how to generate hydrogen from renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels. It also examined how the gas that’s produced can be stored to provide energy at times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

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The respected head of South Africa’s Independent Power Producer (IPP) Office, Karen Breytenbach, has confirmed to Engineering News Online that she has been asked to vacate her position by the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

News of her departure was revealed in a Tweet on Monday afternoon by Anton Eberhard, who is emeritus professor and senior scholar at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. He also heads up the Eskom Sustainability Task Team, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to offer solutions to Eskom’s financial crisis.

Since 2011, Breytenbach has overseen R209-billion investment in 112 renewable-energy projects with “zero corruption”, Eberhard noted in his Tweet.

Breytenbach, 61, subsequently told Engineering News Online that she had indeed been asked to leave and that the DBSA and the DoE had indicated that an acting head of the IPP Office would be appointed until a permanent head was secured.

She said no reason was given as to why she was being asked to leave.

Earlier this year, an advert bearing the logos of the DBSA, the DoE and the National Treasury was placed in several national newspapers calling for applicants to apply for the position of IPP Office head.

When questioned about the advert at a media conference in April, former Energy Minister Jeff Radebe said that Breytenbach had his full support and would be continuing in the position.

It is understood, however, that, when Breytenbach’s contract expired in February, she was initially reappointed until the end of March and then until April 2020.

However, she has not been paid for the past five months and received a letter on Monday July 22 indicating that she was no longer the head of the IPP Office.

In his July 11, Budget Vote address, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe reported that the DoE was working closely with the DBSA to “transition the current IPP Office into a legal entity that will continue to execute the mandate of the department in bringing about security of energy supply”.

He added the conversion of the office into that of a “juristic institution” would ensure "stability" at the office, as well as “proper accountability of the IPP Office” to the executive of the department.

Breytenbach is held in high regard both locally and globally for having overseen the development and roll-out of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which is regarded as one of the best renewables competitive bidding programmes internationally.

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Electrical house (eHouse) solutions and electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure provider TGOOD Africa is expanding its business into Africa and aims to establish offices in Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia in the next nine to twelve months.

The company’s head office for its sub-Saharan Africa operations is in Johannesburg and the company also has offices in Nairobi, in Kenya, Abuja, in Nigeria, and Accra, in Ghana.

TGOOD Africa has undertaken projects in all the mentioned countries, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Angola and Ethiopia. The company also has agreements with distributors in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.

The company is focused on delivering modular, prefabricated power distribution solutions across the utilities, infrastructure, mining and renewable-energy markets in Africa.

“In South Africa, there is a trend where companies will take second-hand shipping containers and convert them into substations; we don’t do that – it is dangerous and a low cost, low quality solution. Our solution is a custom-designed and custom-built eHouse,” TGOOD Africa CEO Kobus Coetzer tells Engineering News.

The enclosures of TGOOD’s eHouses are made of what the com- pany calls a “ribcage” of steel columns and the gaps in-between are closed with metal sheets and insulation material. Once everything is fitted, the enclosure has an IP54 rating.

He adds that the eHouses are built according to clients’ specifications, and if a client does not have specifications, TGOOD can assist them with developing such specifications.

The eHouses are manufactured in Qingdao, in China, but TGOOD Africa wants to establish a manufacturing plant in South Africa in the future.

TGOOD will also be launching new battery technology that can be used for energy storage, in the next nine to twelve months.

“This is going to revolutionise energy storage,” Coetzer highlights.

He contextualises this statement by outlining the current generation of batteries that is being used for energy storage’s several shortcomings. These include that the batteries have a limited lifecycle, cannot be fast charged more than a few times and have limited discharging cycles they can handle before becoming obsolete.

The battery technology that TGOOD intends to launch can be fast charged and can be discharged limitlessly. He notes that he sees a big market for this technology in South Africa.

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Renewable energy provides solutions for the challenges associated with power generation, as the price of photovoltaics and wind energy technologies have gone down owing to the increase in the efficiency of the technologies, says Stellenbosch University Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies (CRSES) director Professor Sampson Mamphweli.

“South Africa has a lot of solar radiation that can be converted through solar photovoltaics and concentrated solar power technologies. The country also has a lot of biomass materials that can be used to provide bioenergy. Wind is also prominent around the coastal areas. There is also space for technology localisation, which will then result in job creation.”
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He further tells Engineering News that, with the cost for renewable energy having decreased, it has allowed for an increase in the number of installations by industry and households.

Moreover, he mentions that renewable energy is a viable option, especially with State-owned power utility Eskom facing a challenge in the mismanagement of its generation division, specifically regarding the maintenance of the fleet of coal-fired power stations, which are ageing and require maintenance regularly.

However, Mamphweli adds that the unbundling of Eskom into three separate divisions is a step in the right direction.

It is important that Eskom gets unbundled into generation, transmission and distribution, with generation being partially privatised but still regulated by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa. “This will ensure efficient running of the generation division,” he concludes.

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The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has found that renewable energy helped combat load-shedding in the first quarter of 2019.

The CSIR said that variable renewable energy (VRE) helped to relieve pressure on the South African power grid and was a major factor in avoiding further load-shedding.

Causes of load-shedding during 2019 have been cited as unplanned plant failures combined with the loss of imported power from Mozambique.

This resulted in the most intensive load-shedding ever experienced in the country, with 595GWh shed in March alone.

The CSIR noted that renewable energy contributed 2,975GWh (5.3%) to the South African power system in the first quarter of 2019, proving instrumental in combating the severity of load-shedding.

“Without the variable renewable energy fleet, load-shedding stage 5 and 6 could have been invoked,” the CSIR said.

The graph below details the effect of renewable energy on the load-shedding crisis in South Africa in Q1 2019.
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Lingering policy uncertainty and regulatory delays are continuing to impede the development of hundreds of small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) projects, which are seen at the quickest and cheapest way for South Africa to address its current electricity supply deficit.

The South African Independent Power Producer Association (SAIPPA) estimates that between 2 500 MW to 3 500 MW of capacity is being constrained as a result of the problem and that 30 MW to 50 MW could be added monthly once coherent processes are instituted.

The prevailing policy framework and regulatory processes remain deeply problematic and are affecting both small plants below a capacity threshold of 1 MW, as well as larger SSEG projects.

In fact, the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) has identified just over 280 MW from projects under 1 MW and about 600 MW from projects between 1 MW and 10 MW that are currently built, but not operating, as a result of regulatory gridlock.

Although sub-1 MW plants have been exempted from the theoretical burden of licensing, they are currently tied up in red tape arising from a November 2017 Licensing Exemption and Registration Notice published in terms of the Electricity Regulation Act (ERA). Issued by the Department of Energy (DoE), with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) concurrence, the notice amended Schedule 2 of the ERA.

Both the DoE and Nersa acknowledge the notice is “flawed” and the DoE sent an updated notice to Nersa for its concurrence in late 2018.

The updated notice exempts projects below 100 kW from any form of registration and instead directs municipal distributors to keep a register of such facilities. Plants between 100 kW and 1 MW in size are required to register with Nersa and pay a R200 registration fee.

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