Search Results (26)

This study sought to generate, evaluate, and recommend possible national policies for the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to implement to most effectively boost growth and investment in renewable energy technologies (RETs) through 2065 using Open Source Energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS). The novelty of this study stems in-part from the scarcity of RET modelling completed for specific West African countries rather than for broader regions. Market-based instruments were identified as the policy type most practical for DRC. From modelling the resulting energy systems for policy pathways involving a 16% RET subsidy, a 70% fossil fuel tax, and both in combination relative to no-policy baseline scenarios, the scenarios including the tax had the lowest net costs (USD304–306 B) and the highest proportion of RETs (above 90%). Additionally, despite the current reliance on hydropower to fulfil 98% of its energy needs, hydropower played a very minor role in all of a modelled scenarios (no future investment beyond residual capacity). Finally, a post-modelling market potential assessment was performed on the technology that dominated off-grid supply across policy pathways: a 0.3 kW small solar home system (SHS). Based on learning rates for solar photovoltaics (PV), demand for a small SHS in DRC (>160 million units in total) was found to be sufficient to substantially reduce the unit cost as deployment scales. Ultimately, this study yielded four recommendations for the DRC government: (1) Pursue financial incentives to catalyse DRC’s renewable energy supply. (2) Tax fossil fuel energy production. (3) Re-evaluate focus on hydropower. (4) Promote DRC as a healthy market for solar home systems. Full article

Integration of vehicle-to-home (V2H) centralized photovoltaic (HCPV) systems is a requested and potentially fruitful research topic for both industry and academia. Renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels, alleviate energy deficits. Furthermore, energy storage technologies, such as batteries, thermal, and electric vehicles, are indispensable. Consequently, in this article, we examine the impact of solar photovoltaic (SPV), microgrid (MG) storage, and an electric vehicle (EV) on maximum sun radiation hours. As a result, an HCPV scheduling algorithm is developed and applied to maximize energy sustainability in a smart home (SH). The suggested algorithm can manage energy demand between the MG and SPV systems, as well as the EV as a mobile storage system. The model is based on several limitations to meet households’ electrical needs during sunny and cloudy weather. A multi-agent system (MAS) is undertaken to ensure proper system operation and meet the power requirements of various devices. An experimental database for weather and appliances is deployed to evaluate and control energy consumption and production cost parameters. The obtained results illustrate the benefits of V2H technology as a prospective unit storage solution. Full article

Rooftop solar photovoltaics have the potential to successfully electrify rural and scattered communities worldwide. However, access to clean, high-quality, reliable and affordable energy remains elusive for several households in rural areas of the developing world. To fully comprehend, unpack and proffer meaningful solutions to this mismatch, energy sources in use and types in areas where rural electrification through solar home systems are profiled. Furthermore, grassroot communities’ perceptions of rooftop solar photovoltaics (PVs) was explored. A case study design was adopted. Thirty (30) households were purposively sampled from three selected villages. Their perceptions on the adoption of solar photovoltaic home systems were analysed qualitatively using Atlas ti 8 software. Thematic network analysis was pursued. Households in the chosen villages use grid connections, paraffin, solar PV, firewood and candles to meet their energy needs. The chosen villages used energy for water heating, refrigeration, cooking, illumination, space heating, entertainment and ironing at the household level. In general, the participating households perceived solar PVs as a relatively cheap, easy-to-use, environmentally friendly alternative energy, and did not demand regular payments once installed. However, there was a discerning perception that solar was a weak technology that could not be relied on because it produces an inferior quality of energy, could be easily stolen and needed high capital investment beyond the reach of many consumers. The results obtained in this study highlight that the solar home system (SHS) rollout should be sensitive to rural communities’ financial situations and be innovative in that low-income households are included. In addition, there is a need for a robust awareness programme that highlights the energy availability, reliability, quality, cost effectiveness and legal, health and safety benefits of the SHS to the rural families in the district. Full article

Solar home systems (SHS), a cost-effective solution for rural communities far from the grid in developing countries, are small solar panels and associated equipment that provides power to a single household. A crucial resource for targeting further investment of public and private resources, as well as tracking the progress of universal electrification goals, is shared access to high-quality data on individual SHS installations including information such as location and power capacity. Though recent studies utilizing satellite imagery and machine learning to detect solar panels have emerged, they struggle to accurately locate many SHS due to limited image resolution (some small solar panels only occupy several pixels in satellite imagery). In this work, we explore the viability and cost-performance tradeoff of using automatic SHS detection on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery as an alternative to satellite imagery. More specifically, we explore three questions: (i) what is the detection performance of SHS using drone imagery; (ii) how expensive is the drone data collection, compared to satellite imagery; and (iii) how well does drone-based SHS detection perform in real-world scenarios? To examine these questions, we collect and publicly-release a dataset of high-resolution drone imagery encompassing SHS imaged under a variety of real-world conditions and use this dataset and a dataset of imagery from Rwanda to evaluate the capabilities of deep learning models to recognize SHS, including those that are too small to be reliably recognized in satellite imagery. The results suggest that UAV imagery may be a viable alternative to identify very small SHS from perspectives of both detection accuracy and financial costs of data collection. UAV-based data collection may be a practical option for supporting electricity access planning strategies for achieving sustainable development goals and for monitoring the progress towards those goals. Full article

Off-grid technologies, such as solar home systems (SHS), offer the opportunity to alleviate global energy poverty, providing a cost-effective alternative to an electricity grid connection. However, there is a paucity of high-quality SHS electricity usage data and thus a limited understanding of consumers’ past and future usage patterns. This study addresses this gap by providing a rare large-scale analysis of real-time energy consumption data for SHS customers (n = 63,299) in Rwanda. Our results show that 70% of SHS users’ electricity usage decreased a year after their SHS was installed. This paper is novel in its application of a three-dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture for electricity load forecasting using time series data. It also marks the first time a CNN was used to predict SHS customers’ electricity consumption. The model forecasts individual households’ usage 24 h and seven days ahead, as well as an average week across the next three months. The last scenario derived the best performance with a mean squared error of 0.369. SHS companies could use these predictions to offer a tailored service to customers, including providing feedback information on their likely future usage and expenditure. The CNN could also aid load balancing for SHS based microgrids. Full article

The e-cooking feasibility was evaluated for two of the main staple foods across rural Sub-Saharan Africa (rice and maize porridge) considering basic solar home systems (SHS) of 100–150 W and using inexpensive market available low-power DC cooking devices (rice cooker and slow cooker). The coverage of e-cooking necessities was spatially evaluated for the African continent considering households of two, five, and eight people. While households of two people were able to be covered >95% of the days, the increase in e-cooking necessities implied that only larger PV generators (150 W) located in high irradiation sites (>2400 kWh/m${}^2$/year) were able to fulfill e-cooking, even in scenarios of households of five and eight people. Furthermore, the economic cost and the greenhouse gases emission factor (GHG) of e-cooking via small SHS were evaluated and benchmarked against traditional technologies with wood and charcoal considering three-stone and improved stoves and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cookers. The GHG for e-cooking was 0.027–0.052 kgCO${}_2$eq./kg·meal, which was strikingly lower than the other technologies (0.502–2.42 kgCO${}_2$eq./kg·meal). The e-cooking cost was in the range of EUR 0.022–0.078 person/day, which was clearly lower than LPG and within the range of the cost of cooking with wood and charcoal (EUR 0.02–0.48 person/day). The results provided a novel insight regarding market available technologies with a potential of changing cooking conditions in this region. Full article

Solar home systems (SHS) represent one of the most promising technologies for a rapid and independent electrification in those areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) without access to electricity. This study addressed the environmental impact of SHS in SSA through updated life cycle inventories and five impact categories: greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, fossil fuels, metal and water depletion and human toxicity. Sixteen scenarios were considered, including manufacturing, transportation, recycling and user-related variables, such as the installation site, adequacy of SHS user operation and battery lifespan. The results showed that lead-acid batteries were the largest contributor to environmental impact among the SHS components, accounting for up to 36–76% of the environmental impact indicators. Apart from the components, user training for SHS operation, with the goal of maximizing usable energy and battery lifetime, proved to be critical to achieve improvements in the energy payback time and GHG emissions, which (under scenarios of high solar resources) can reach the range of 5.3–7.1 years and 0.14–0.18 kgCO${}_2$ eq/kWh, respectively. In addition, SHS GHG emission factors were benchmarked with those of other electrification approaches, such as national grids, 100% PV and hybrid PV-diesel off-grid mini grids and off-grid diesel generators. SHS achieved GHG emission factor values equivalent to PV-based mini grids in most scenarios and was strikingly lower compared to SSA national grids and diesel generators. Full article

The electrification of isolated homes in rural areas without access to the electric grid has been achieved in part using solar energy transformed into electricity through Photovoltaic (PV) equipment known as Solar Home Systems (SHSs), which has been widely disseminated throughout the world. The use of SHSs in rural electrification projects has been studied from 1980 to date, they have been incorporating advances and technological innovations successively. Through the review of documents on PV projects, articles, and technical reports, it has been possible to identify the changes in the main components of the SHS and the typical configurations, systematizing them in a discrete timeline. Thereby, this article characterizes three generations of SHSs and highlights their differences. The first generation is fully valid between 1980–1995, the second generation in 1995–2010, and the third generation from 2005 to date, which overlaps the beginning. In any case, the time limits in each period are only referential. The later generation, Third Generation Solar Home Systems (3G-SHSs), is highly efficient, uses LED lamps, lithium batteries, microelectronic control, and plug and play connections. Indeed, this equipment can be self-managed by the user and reflects the technology’s high reliability by a minimum maintenance service in situ. Furthermore, their lower costs make access to electricity more affordable for the last mile population. The present research offers a detailed technological and operational characterization of the 3G-SHSs to show the most relevant aspects of support to project developers, planners, and decision-makers to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7. Full article

The current electrification status in West African countries presents rural electrification rates below 40%, national grid losses above 39% with frequent disruptions, and electricity prices averaging $0.35/kWh, up to national values of $0.66/kWh. With this, off-grid systems have gained great attention during the last decade as energy solutions; especially solar home systems (SHS) and mini grids. Nowadays, 385 mini grids with a power of near 30 MW are operating in West Africa, with 95% based on PV. Since 2019, result-based tenders with international aid funding—more effective than previous competitive tenders—seek to install at least 317 new mini grids in Togo, 250 in Nigeria, 100 in Burkina Faso, and two in Mali. Besides, the market for mini-grid energy access start-ups grew from $19 million in 2013 to $339 million in 2018. Despite this recent development in West Africa, research and data for mini grids in this region is scarce, and it is mostly approached from the technological side, with a striking lack of information regarding the social impact. This work tries to describe the present status of research and current operating installations, as well as the main challenges for future development of off grid mini grids in West Africa, which pose as the missing link between SHS and grid extension. Full article

Solar home systems (SHSs) are successfully addressing energy access deficits across the globe, particularly when combined with pay-as-you-go (PAYG) payment models, allowing households to pay for energy services in small instalments. To increase energy access, it is vital to understand the PAYG SHS customer journey in depth. To aid this, the paper presents unique data from active customers, consisting of structured interviews (n = 100) and two focus groups (n = 24) across two districts in Rwanda. These results are presented under a novel customer journey framework, which describes all the individual stages a customer might experience, including awareness and understanding, purchase, usage, upgrade, recommendation and retaining or switching energy source. The paper reveals that the customer journey is non-linear and cyclical in nature, acknowledging that a household operates in a social network within which they could influence or be influenced by others. It also highlights the growing importance of SHS recommendations in raising awareness of SHSs, pointing to the shifts in the off-grid energy market environment where customer awareness no longer appears to be a main adoption barrier. Full article

Ongoing reductions in the costs of solar PV and battery technologies have contributed to an increased use of home energy systems in Sub-Saharan African regions without grid access. However, such systems can normally support only low-power end uses, and there has been little research regarding the impact on households unable to transition to higher-wattage energy services in the continued absence of the grid. This paper examines the challenges facing rural energy transitions and whether households feel they are energy ‘locked in’. A mixed-methods approach using questionnaire-based household energy surveys of rural solar home system (SHS) users was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Thematic analysis and a mixture of descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were applied. The results showed that a significant number of households possessed appliances that could not be powered by their SHS and were willing to spend large sums to connect were a higher-capacity option available. This implied that a significant number of the households were locked into a low-energy future. Swarm electrification technology and energy efficient, DC-powered plug-and-play appliances were suggested as means to move the households to higher tiers of electricity access. Full article

The commercial sector in Nigeria has been greatly hampered due to the poor availability of reliable electricity. In a 2014 World Bank report, nearly half of the firms doing business in Nigeria identified electricity as a major constraint, with over a quarter of them listing electricity as their biggest obstacle. The business losses due to electrical outages have been significant, with losses averaging about 16% of annual sales. The lack of access to reliable electricity is one of the biggest challenges to economic growth in Nigeria. This paper proposes a means of powering the commercial sector in Nigeria using urban swarm electrification. It outlines a conceptual framework for using a distributed network made up of grid-connected home solar PV systems as a viable option for providing the commercial sector with more reliable access to electricity. It further addresses the policy implications for the commercial sector with the enablement of more electrification options, implications that include strong economic impact, as well as the expansion and creation of new industries. Full article

Limited access to clean energy has long been an obstacle to livelihood improvement of populations mired in energy poverty. Cooking with traditional biomass contributes to high levels of indoor air pollution, thus imposing significant threats to public health. Due to the accessibility and affordability of clean fuels for rural residents, this study proposes that renewable solar energy be employed to supply power for induction cooking stoves (ICS) through solar home systems (SHS), and estimates both the costs and health benefits of upgrading to ICS and SHS in lower-middle-income countries (LMCs) in Southeast Asia. Disability-Adjusted Life Years and the value of a statistical life year were employed to estimate the health benefits of ICS-SHS. The results suggest that the health benefits brought by ICS-SHS alone can surpass the estimated minimum cost for an ICS-SHS in the six LMCs in Southeast Asia. This study provides a potential reference for getting other energy poverty regions involved with affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy, as well as simultaneously tackling indoor air pollution caused by cooking. Full article

This study conducted a questionnaire-led survey to explore the financial feasibility and socio-environmental impacts of stand-alone solar home systems (SHS) through stratified random sampling. Based on the above consideration, fifteen cases of studies of various watt peak (Wp) capacities have been investigated to evaluate the economic viability of solar home systems. The results revealed that most of the cases have positive net present value (NPV) and low payback periods, with an internal rate of return (IRR) value ranging from 16% to 131%, which signifies a high rate of investment exchange. Solar home systems are economically profitable for micro-enterprises and households with low-income generation activities as opposed to the households using it only for lighting. The study found that solar home systems with a capacity above 30 Wp are the most economically viable option, which can also avoid 6.15 to 7.34 tonnes of CO₂ emissions during the 20 years of life-cycle, while providing different applications including lighting, recreation, information, health, and economic benefits. Full article

Nearly 840 million people still lack access to electricity, while over a billion more have an unreliable electricity connection. In this article, the three different electrification pathways—grid extension, centralized microgrids, and standalone solar-based solutions, such as pico-solar and solar home systems (SHS)—are critically examined while understanding their relative merits and demerits. Grid extension can provide broad scale access at low levelized costs but requires a certain electricity demand threshold and population density to justify investments. To a lesser extent, centralized (off-grid) microgrids also require a minimum demand threshold and knowledge of the electricity demand. Solar-based solutions are the main focus in terms of off-grid electrification in this article, given the equatorial/tropical latitudes of the un(der-)electrified regions. In recent times, decentralized solar-based off-grid solutions, such as pico-solar and SHS, have shown the highest adoption rates and promising impetus with respect to basic lighting and electricity for powering small appliances. However, the burning question is—from lighting a million to empowering a billion—can solar home systems get us there?The two main roadblocks for SHS are discussed, and the requirements from the ideal electrification pathway are introduced. A bottom-up, interconnected SHS-based electrification pathway is proposed as the missing link among the present electrification pathways. Full article