NAIROBI, Kenya
Access to electricity remains a major challenge for over half a billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, and power outages are common. But clean electricity from solar is catching on in several large African countries, and a lot of it is off-grid, powering one or more buildings, but not attached to a larger system.
A walk through the busy
business district of Mombasa Road in Nairobi, or even a rural community in
Kisii County, Kenya, highlights something that's getting attention at the
African Climate Summit in Nairobi this week — solar power that is not connected
to the grid.
With or without the
encouragement of government policy, families and businesses are choosing
off-grid solar in the face of an unreliable grid. According to the World Bank,
the number of so-called minigrids, meaning solar systems that support a cluster
of homes or businesses, has grown from 500 in Africa in 2000 to 3,000 today.
In Kenya, the price of
electricity has risen due to higher fuel costs, driving some to form their own
local grids.
It's not just individual homes
in Kenya: Solar energy’s reliability and lower cost, despite initial high
installation capital, has attracted steel manufacturers and cooking oil
factories, who form some of the biggest clients for one Nairobi-based company.
CP Solar’s managing director,
Rashmi Shah, said his company has installed 25 megawatts of solar systems in
the past six years. “It is a very clean source of energy,” he said, and clients
are able to recover their initial costs through savings within the first four
years.
“We are not polluting the air
at all; we are not raising the temperatures; we are not affecting the climate
of the Earth. So that is why more and more emphasis is coming to cleaner
energy,” he told The Associated Press.
Over half a billion people in
sub-Saharan Africa don't have reliable access to electricity. Power outages are
common. Renewable energy is more reliable but its promise for the region still
remains largely unmet. The African nations below the Sahara have 60% of the
world’s solar potential.
“The nearly year-round
sunshine in Africa makes us unique,” Kenyan President William Ruto told a
ministerial session at the climate summit this week.
In Nigeria, as in Kenya,
things are changing. Most households have depended on gasoline generators for
power, but recently the government removed a gasoline subsidy, prompting
increased interest in solar power, according to dealers. Only about half of Nigerians
are connected to the grid, and even for them, power cuts are common.
The Nigerian government has
not announced incentives to promote solar energy, such as reducing import taxes
on solar equipment as demanded by dealers.
But where the government has
been unhelpful, the private sector has taken the lead in promoting it by
offering households and small businesses the option of paying for their solar
installations over time.
“The problem was
affordability, but now customers can pay installments over a period of 18
months,” said Tunde Oladipupo, an agent for Sun King, a solar power company.
Oladipupo, who is based in Oyo, southwestern Nigeria, said his company also
serves energy-hungry small businesses like those that use freezers or pump
water from boreholes.
After addressing the issue of
high upfront costs, the model has proved to be a solution for the social
problems drawn out by Nigeria’s energy crisis in poorly served and low-income
households. For Monsurat Qadri, the challenge was helping her young daughter
with homework in the evenings when there was no light. Grid electricity was
unavailable and the other option, a generator, had become too expensive.
But now, “I’m done with
worrying about lighting,” Qadri said. She has installed a small solar system
that powers five bulbs and a fan, and paying the installments every month is
easy for her.
In Nigeria, unlike Kenya, the
use of solar power for industry is rare. “Not a single one as far as I know,”
Mohammed Ettu, who runs Makhade Power Solutions in Lagos, said of big
industrial productions in Nigeria that use solar power.
In the third powerhouse
economy of sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, the government announced a new
policy in 2021 that allows mining companies and large industrial operations to
generate up to 100 megawatts of their own electricity, up from just one megawatt,
reducing their reliance on the national grid and promoting renewable energy
sources. As a result, several companies, including Sibanye Stillwater, Anglo
American Platinum, and Gold Fields, have announced plans to generate
significant amounts of renewable power in the short term.
Another example of this shift
is the Ford vehicle assembly plant in Silverton, Pretoria, which currently
sources over 35% of its electricity from solar power.
South Africa is also taking
steps to reduce its dependence on coal-fired power. The Komati power station in
Mpumalanga was decommissioned in 2022 and will be converted to clean generation
with more than 150 megawatts of solar, 70 megawatts of wind, and 150 megawatts
of storage batteries.
Amid the ongoing electricity
crisis this year, the South African government offered tax incentives for
households and businesses that purchase renewable energy sources and for
households that install solar panels on their rooftops.
Businesses installing
renewable energy can reduce their taxable income by 125% of the cost of the
investment. Households that install rooftop solar will be able to claim a
rebate of 25% of the cost of the panels, up to a maximum of R15,000 (US $779).
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