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Decen­tral­ized ener­gy sup­ply in Sub-Saha­ran Africa

Star­tups + Inno­va­tions: Sub-Saha­ran Africa

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What Africa Needs to Go Green Is Finance

  • Bloomberg 
  • Invest­ment in renew­able ener­gy in Africa fell to an 11-year low in 2021, com­pris­ing just 0.6% of the glob­al total, accord­ing to a report by BloombergNEF. Financ­ing options are insuf­fi­cient and expen­sive because lenders wor­ry about the risks of tak­ing on new projects in often polit­i­cal­ly or eco­nom­i­cal­ly unsta­ble coun­tries with bro­ken sup­ply chains — though the oppor­tu­ni­ties can be unrivaled. 
Image: bird sto­ry agency

This Rwan­dan man has pow­ered his entire com­mu­ni­ty with clean hydro­elec­tric energy

  • news24 
  • “In 2012, I sold my house and land for $17 000 [R290 000] and used the pro­ceeds to buy used engines and water pipes in Kigali, which I assem­bled to make a hydro­elec­tric plant,” he said. With this ini­tial suc­cess, he was able to give pow­er to more than 50 fam­i­lies in his com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, after four months, he stopped the project. 

Niger­ian clean tech start­up, Sun­Fi, rais­es $2.325 mil­lion in seed funding

  • NG Break­ing News 
  • The start­up spe­cialis­es in con­nect­ing house­holds and busi­ness­es who are inter­est­ed in solar ener­gy access to suit­able pay­ment plans. The ener­gy com­pa­ny pro­vides cus­tomers with two pay­ment meth­ods ‑a lease to own, where after an ini­tial deposit, cus­tomers make pay­ments in instal­ments before owing the solar sys­tem, and a sub­scrip­tion mod­el, where cus­tomers pay to use the solar sys­tem monthly. 
Image: Ven­ture­burn

$1m grant to dri­ve elec­tric mobil­i­ty shift in 7 African countries

  • Ventureburn 
  • Fol­low­ing a $1‑million tech­ni­cal assis­tance grant to the Green Mobil­i­ty Facil­i­ty for Africa (GMFA), the con­ti­nent will fur­ther pave the way for the devel­op­ment of Africa-pro­duced elec­tric vehi­cles. The devel­op­ment of a bank­able pipeline of e‑mobility projects is also on the cards. 
Image: Mobil­i­ty for change

Africa boosts home­grown e‑mobility in bid to curb emissions

  • Deutsche Welle 
  • Motor­cy­cles with swap bat­ter­ies and bus­es with solar pan­els on their roofs: African inno­va­tors have been work­ing on ideas that sup­port the cli­mate, the local pop­u­la­tion and pro­mote the “Made in Africa” brand. This shift to e‑mobility also brings the chance for a stronger focus on the ‘Made in Africa’ brand. 

Kenya plans spe­cial tar­iff for elec­tric cars

  • Busi­ness Daily 
  • Kenya plans a spe­cial tar­iff for elec­tric car charg­ing sta­tions that will be cheap­er than the aver­age domes­tic con­sumer, in the lat­est e‑mobility by East Africa’s biggest econ­o­my. The tar­iff is expect­ed to hold until 2025, pro­vid­ing pre­dictabil­i­ty to investors in e‑mobility.
Image: eWa­ka

Mobil­i­ty Start­up eWa­ka receives $541k Loan from SECO

  • Tech­build Africa 
  • SECO Start-up Fund has offered a 500,000 CHF($541k) loan that will sup­port eWAKA’s 2023 plans to accel­er­ate a growth strat­e­gy focused on pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy in Africa through the local pro­duc­tion and pro­mo­tion of the mobil­i­ty startup’s sig­na­ture elec­tron­ic bike known as the Shujaa. 
Image: Stiftung Solarenergie

Sec­ond-life bat­tery sys­tems for afford­able ener­gy access in Kenyan pri­ma­ry schools

  • Nature 
  • In this research, we explore the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using sec­ond-life bat­ter­ies (which have been retired from their first intend­ed life) and solar pho­to­voltaics to pro­vide afford­able ener­gy access to pri­ma­ry schools in Kenya. Based on inter­views with 12 East African schools, real­is­tic sys­tem sizes were deter­mined with vary­ing solar pho­to­volta­ic sizes and lithi­um-ion bat­tery capacities. 

Kenyan start­up Eco­mo­bilus uses old lap­top bat­ter­ies to pow­er bikes

  • Africa News 
  • Eco­mo­bilus col­lects frames from old motor­bikes, removes the engines and replaces them with a bat­tery and a motor to pro­pel the bike. They run on a 60V direct cur­rent. The bat­ter­ies take hours to charge but can take 45 min­utes if on a fast charg­er. The bikes are being used around the city by couri­ers and deliv­ery drivers. 

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Pic­ture cred­its cov­er pho­to: © Solar Ener­gy Foun­da­tion Ethiopia; Anna Tolipo­va | Dreamstime.com; Sat­acre­ative | Dreamstime.com

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