Enabling factors for the development of mini-grid solutions in Mozambique: A PESTLE-based analysis

Soares, Castro Antonio; Shendrikova, Diana; Crevani, Giacomo; Silinto, Berino; Colombo, Emanuela

doi:10.1016/j.esr.2022.101040

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This challenge coupled with frequent changes in policy direction erodes the confidence of international investors and deter them from investing in the country as they deem it to be too risky. This finding is consistent with a similar study conducted in Mozambique [44]. A strong political will is needed to combat corruption and nepotism in any democratic system.…”

Section: Politicalsupporting

confidence: 92%

Empowering Low-Income Communities with Sustainable Decentralized Renewable Energy-Based Mini-Grids

Nyarko,

Whale,

Urmee

2023

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With less than seven years before the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals deadline, the race is on to achieve universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services in low-income communities in developing countries. These communities are mostly distant from central grids and economically suitable for off-grid mini-grid systems. Data suggest that these mini-grids are not sustained and often fail after a few years of operation. The authors investigated the challenges of an existing mini-grid system in Ghana and proposed measures to overcome them. Field surveys with expert stakeholders and users of the system were conducted to examine the challenges. The results showed that 98% of the residents use power for domestic purposes. The inability to pay for the power consumed was the highest-ranked challenge the users faced followed by power quality issues. From the expert stakeholders’ perspectives, economic challenges were the most significant barriers with a mean score range of 3.92 to 4.73 on a 1–5 Likert scale, followed by political challenges. The researchers propose that implementers must optimize non-hardware costs and promote local component manufacturing to address these economic challenges. In addition, we suggest that the government review the government-driven policy and involve the private sector.

show abstract

Section: Politicalsupporting

confidence: 92%

Empowering Low-Income Communities with Sustainable Decentralized Renewable Energy-Based Mini-Grids

Nyarko,

Whale,

Urmee

2023

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While this study highlights the importance of adaptive performance as a key CSF in neglected renewable energy projects, the existing literature emphasizes project agility, adaptive performance, and other contextual factors in the context of numerous industries such as business process re-engineering, new product development, innovative engineering, and healthcare projects [22,23,55]. In addition, numerous studies have highlighted the impact of several external factors, such as political, economic, and technical, on the success of renewable energy development [64][65][66]. But there is an absence of theory-driven empirical research that advances in explaining the impact of external sources in the form of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workforce.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Exploring the Moderating Role of COVID-19 on the Adaptive Performance and Project Success: Inching towards Energy Transition

Haris,

Yang,

Khokhar

et al. 2023

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Globally, approximately one-third of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributed to the energy sector. The global efforts to reduce emissions by 45 percent by 2030 in pursuit of net-zero emission targets depend on the timely completion of renewable energy projects. Among numerous internal and external factors that influence the success of projects, the performance of the workforce in response to changing project dynamics is a key yet little-explored factor. As such, the complexities and uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic only enhanced the intensity of existing challenges faced by the workforce. This study investigates the moderating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between adaptive performance and the success of wind power plants in Pakistan. By drawing a sample size of 345 project personnel and using SMART PLS 4, the findings indicate that adaptive performance is a desired attribute in the workforce, and it contributes significantly towards the success of wind power plants in Pakistan. In addition, the stress, disturbance in work-life balance, and physical issues due to COVID-19 weaken the relationship of adaptive performance with the project’s success. This study has implications for renewable energy projects’ stakeholders to not ignore this aspect of performance and support the workforce through training, development, and adaptive management practices, as well as making projects flexible enough to facilitate changes. In addition, this study provides theoretical implications that highlight how human agency is affected by external factors, which in this case is the COVID-19 pandemic.

show abstract

“…Among these, Baruah and Coleman [42] indentify economic and financial barriers such as: high cost of capital from local banks (i.e., associated to high interest rates), short maturity of lending, underdeveloped microfinance options, reduced attractiveness for foreign capitals, and no national-led incentives to mobilize low-cost finance to private-sector led off-grid projects. As Soares et al [43] proved in their recent investigation, private sector stakeholders in the mini-grid sector of Mozambique consider economic factors as the most limiting ones for the enabling of the national market.…”

Section: Mozambique Off-grid Energy Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

Modelling Financing Schemes for Energy System Planning: A Mini-Grid Case Study

Crevani

Soares

Colombo

2023

36th International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems (ECOS 20

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Energy modeling has been playing a crucial role in defining solutions for effective energy planning. Bottomup energy system planning models, namely those models characterized by high technological detail, typically present exogenous techno-economic parameters which rely on data gathered by the user, from specific costs to efficiencies. However, poor to no attention has been given to the date to the financial parameters of energy models, which are often assumed and barely justified (e.g., "discount rate equal to 10%", full stop). Still, model outputs are drastically sensitive to variations of finance-related parameters and must provide the financing structure that a decision-maker should implement for funding the advised energy planning strategies. This results particularly crucial for mini-grid sizing in sub-Saharan African countries, where the challenge of the energy transition entails the construction of massive new capacities to improve energy access rates and tiers of service, demanding an enhanced collaboration between private and public sectors. The case study, applied on an off-grid mini-grid in Mozambique, proposes a comparison between scenarios with increasing financial detail and a possible conceptualization of the hard link between detailed financial modelling and a bottom-up energy model for mini-grid optimization. Different financing schemes are modelled and their impact on the energy modelling outputs assessed. Project finance hence emerges as a useful approach that could upgrade the financing structure of domestic power projects in African countries. This may lead to many benefits: more sustainable and affordable interest rates where corporate finance is missing, improved risk management, diversified funding mix, and facilitated financial support from international institutions.

show abstract

Enabling factors for the development of mini-grid solutions in Mozambique: A PESTLE-based analysis

Cited by 8 publications

References 51 publications

Empowering Low-Income Communities with Sustainable Decentralized Renewable Energy-Based Mini-Grids

Empowering Low-Income Communities with Sustainable Decentralized Renewable Energy-Based Mini-Grids

Exploring the Moderating Role of COVID-19 on the Adaptive Performance and Project Success: Inching towards Energy Transition

Modelling Financing Schemes for Energy System Planning: A Mini-Grid Case Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About