When Anne Nyendwa started her shop, she didn’t have any electricity. Like 568 million people across sub-Sahara Africa, the mother of four in Sitolo Village, Mchinji, relied on daylight hours to do business.
Then she heard about solar-battery mini-grids, the electricity networks not connected to the national grid.
While the upfront costs, such as internal wiring and meter connection fees can be more expensive than other solar solutions like solar home systems, the quality and reliability of electricity provided are higher, allowing for higher consumption of electricity including for income-generating activities.
While conventional grids powered by polluting fossil fuels tend to be prioritize more privileged neighbourhoods in urban areas, solar mini-grids offer exciting potential to provide access to electricity in rural areas like Sitolo.
So when she had the opportunity to test the solar battery mini-grid in Sitolo through a UNDP-supported project by Community Energy Malawi, she joined 665 households in trying it out.
Nyendwa says: “My business has grown so much since I got connected to the electricity.”
“I have a shop that opens early and closes as late as 9 p.m. because I have electricity. I make about K50 000 in daily sales. I have many customers beyond this area who come here for cold drinks. The money I make allows me to pay my employees at a farm, pay for school fess and provide for my family.”
Nyendwa has also expanded her business to venture into animal and crop farming and she’s acquired more appliances, connecting her houses to the same electricity for home use.
“I am happy because we have access to services like those living in urban areas,” she said
By providing reliable and affordable electricity, solar mini-grids like the one in Sitolo can deeply improve people’s lives. But currently, these solutions are not being deployed at the scale and space needed to bridge the energy access gap where it is most needed.
The Africa Mini-grids Program (AMP) aims to build on the existing work done across the mini grids space to enable this scale-up.
A country-led technical assistance programme, the AMP is funded by the Global Environmental Facility and implemented by UNDP in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute and the African Development Bank.
It aims to make renewable energy mini-grids commercially viable and unlock opportunities for private investors to electrify off-grid communities.
With a focus on cost-reduction and innovative business models, the programme will work with countries to put in place the policies and regulations that enable large-scale private investment, creating the conditions for renewable energy mini-grids to be deployed as scale.
AMP will also curate, generate and disseminate knowledge on the mini-grid scale-up opportunity across continent.
Africa’s average electrification rate is 48.4 percent. In eight countries, this rate is lower that 20 percent.
Despite an increase in electricity access since 2013, recent data shows a reversal of gains during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is estimated that due to the pandemic, 15 million sub-Saharan Africans who had recently gained basic electricity access lost the ability to pay for it.
Unless electrification efforts are significantly scaled up, 670 million people will remain without access to electricity by 2030 with 9 out of 10 likely to live in sub-Sahara Africa.
Fueling the future
Access to electricity is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to unlock development benefits for the world’s poorest.
Edmark N’dlamini, a 14-year old student, said. “When you have lights, you can plan your study time better. My friends and I are confident that we will pass these Primary School Leaving Certificate Exams on the first attempt because we have been studying a lot.”
Elsewhere in Malawi, health facilities powered by mini-grids now have reliable power sources to support general lighting, cooling vaccines and power medical equipment.
Mini-grids also have important environmental benefits, replacing fossil fuels like diesel and kerosene. They do not require long-distance transmission lines that disrupt natural habitats, including forests._UNDP