Off-grid solar PV: Is it an affordable or appropriate solution for rural electrification in Sub-Saharan African countries?

Baurzhan, Saule; Jenkins, Glenn P.

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2016.03.016

Cited by 165 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Solar energy technologies, solar photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP), offer a promising path for addressing these issues. PV in particular is characterized by its easy deployment, modularity, low maintenance and, mostly, its competitive cost and fast learning curve (Baurzhan and Jenkins 2016). An efficient implementation of solar capacity requires a thorough characterization of the solar resource for present and future climates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistence of the high solar potential in Africa in a changing climate

Soares

Brito

Careto

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The African continent faces several challenges and threats: high vulnerability to climate change, the fastest population increase, the lowest degree of electrification and the need for an energy transition towards renewable energies. Solar energy constitutes a viable option for addressing these issues. In a changing climate the efficient implementation of solar capacity should rely on comprehensive information about the solar resource. Here, the newest and highest resolution regional climate simulation results are used to project the future photovoltaic and concentrated solar power potentials for Africa. We show that the high potentials for solar energy will not be reduced much throughout Africa with climate change. However, the PV solar potential is projected to decrease up to about −10% in limited areas of eastern central Africa; increases are also projected to the northwest and southern Africa (up to about +5%). These changes are mostly determined by changes in solar irradiance but in certain areas the warming is a critical factor limiting PV potential.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistence of the high solar potential in Africa in a changing climate

Soares

Brito

Careto

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Regarding system promotion, installation and maintenance, lack of skilled technicians or knowledge transfer between PV producers and fitters/users is pointed out; system failures thereby often result from unsuitable design, improper installation, use of unreliable components or poor maintenance [15,27,125,126]. Besides, users are also often left on their own with their system after the initial installation, without any real after-sales service structure or proper training [52]. Technology-user interaction is therefore addressed as a critical point in the literature [15,27,125,126]: maintaining system proper performances and reliability in remote areas requires user operation training and significant understanding of the very specific characteristics of the system, but still appears to be left out.…”

Section: Socioeconomic Implications Of the Stand-alone Pv System Randd mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another consequence is the very high cost of off-grid PV systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, which affects related financing schemes used for system dissemination, mainly due to operating and maintenance charges required for counterbalancing the aforementioned reliability and performance issues [26,27,52]. Potential users are often unaware of these extra costs in addition to the PV system initial investment, as they are generally underestimated in financial schemes, and have therefore to cope with it while they are repaying the credit [52].…”

Section: Socioeconomic Implications Of the Stand-alone Pv System Randd mentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical trends in global energy policy and renewable power system issues in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of solar PV

et al. 2019

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“…Building large size systems (about 6 m 2 PV/household for the cooking demand) might be economically inconceivable in rural areas. Cost is the main limiting factor in the adoption and use of solar PVs in rural areas [72]. However, it is viable to satisfy the appliance electricity demand, since the appliance demand accounts for only about 10% of the demands.…”

Section: Consideration Of Solar Energy As Alternative and Its Implicamentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative energy supply system to a rural village in Ethiopia

Tucho

Nonhebel

2017

Energ Sustain Soc

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Background: Most households in rural developing countries do not have access to modern energy supply. Household level biogas energy was considered as an option but failed due to lack of sufficient resources for its installation and operation. A community energy system can be an option, but most studies focused on off-grid electricity. This energy system cannot be a realistic option particularly for cooking demand. An efficient and suitable system matching local resources and demand expectation needs to be developed which this study focuses on assessing. Biogas and solar energy technologies are viable to establish such kind of a system since they can be converted to different forms of energy. Therefore, this study aims to determine efficient biogas and solar energy production and utilization options for small scale village energy application in rural Ethiopia. Methods: The efficiencies of the production and utilization options are determined based on the system configurations involving resource, conversion, and utilization combination models. We used local resources, data, and relevant literature information for the system analysis. Results: The analysis shows that most energy is needed in the form of heat for cooking and a smaller part in the form of electricity (about 10%). The community waste stream converted to biogas will be enough for cooking, but not enough biogas is left to produce enough electricity. Co-digesting altogether provides biogas that can meet only about 75% of the electricity demand. Concentrated solar cookers can be an alternative for cooking in areas where installation of biogas is not possible. About 2-m 2 size solar concentrator is sufficient to meet each household's cooking energy demand. The lighting and appliance energy demand can be met with photovoltaic (PV) energy produced with reasonably sized panels. However, the use of electrical energy for cooking produced with PV cannot be an economic option with the available technologies. Conclusions: The community energy system involving anaerobic co-digestion (biogas) and/or solar energy technologies is viable to meet the demand when efficient production and conversion is made based on specific local resource supply and demand.

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Off-grid solar PV: Is it an affordable or appropriate solution for rural electrification in Sub-Saharan African countries?

Cited by 165 publications

References 31 publications

Persistence of the high solar potential in Africa in a changing climate

Persistence of the high solar potential in Africa in a changing climate

Historical trends in global energy policy and renewable power system issues in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of solar PV

Alternative energy supply system to a rural village in Ethiopia

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