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A clean energy services company aims to have at least 2,500 mini-grids operating across rural sub-Saharan Africa within five years.
In addition to the mini-grids, the Africa Sunshot project envisages:
• A million new connections directly impacting 7.7 million people;
• 225,000 micro small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) connected;
• 150MW installed of rooftop solar commercial and industrial (C8J); and
• 2.1 megatons of C02 avoided through displacement of diesel generation
In the 33 least developed countries in Africa, the electrification rate is only 36%.
According to the World Bank, powering 380 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 will require the construction of more than 160,000 mini-grids at a total cost of $91 billion. Overall, in the region, 568 million people still lack access to electricity, said the World Bank.
"Globally, nearly eight out of 10 people without electricity live in Africa. At the current rate of progress, 595 million Africans will remain unconnected in 2030.
At the current pace, only about 12,000 new mini-grids serving 46 million people will be built, said the company behind the project, Husk Power Systems.
"Without a massive industry scale-up and a more than 10-fold increase in the industrys current deployment rate, SDG7 will remain decades away," it said.
The company has more than 200 mini-grids in operation in Nigeria and India.
The projects country-specific targets include 1,000 mini-grids in Nigeria, 500 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 250 each in four additional countries still to be identified.
The company said it expects to mobilise $500 million in equity and debt to finance the project. |
