Economics
Commercial and industrial (C&I) off-takers can become the main driver for the energy transition in Africa and elsewhere. This is in-line with a global trend that is seeing C&I businesses integrating renewable energy solutions to power on-site operations. Renewables address three issues: greening energy supply, reducing cost and making power more reliable.
“New investors are interested in mini-grids, but they look at companies and say ‘They are not ready for us’,” says Katrina Pielli, senior energy advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “It’s exhausting for investors to go through 16-tab spreadsheets with no two developers presenting things the same way.”
Our Director of Research, Dr. Rebekah Shirley, took a post-conference opportunity to explore the catalysts of growth in the Kenyan decentralized solar market. In this article, she shares key insights and reflections from KEREA, Steama.co, Azuri and Tropical Power.
One of the most pronounced effects of a changing climate is the increase in extreme weather and other natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires. These disasters are not spread evenly: of the 30 countries most affected by changing weather, 26 are least developed countries. To put it another way, 423 million people living in extreme poverty are considered likely to experience the impacts of a changing climate. The tragic events of hurricane Matthew in Haiti are just the most recent example.
East Africa is a leader in the decentralized renewable energy revolution, and along with India it is the most closely watched market as it relates to scaling mini-grids. This is especially true of Tanzania. What happens in Tanzania will have implications for the success of mini-grids elsewhere.
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