Malawi solar mini-grid shows promise as way of electrifying rural Africa – EQ Mag Pro
SITOLO, Malawi : A photo voltaic mini-grid in rural Malawi is powering maize mills, a sunflower oil facility and can assist a welder in a close-by village increase his enterprise, exhibiting that centralised grid methods aren’t Africa’s solely route in direction of low-carbon energy.
Improvement consultants say village-level solar energy is a extra promising approach of bringing electrical energy to Africa’s remotest areas than standard grids, which frequently don’t attain them, are likely to prioritise extra privileged neighbourhoods and are sometimes powered by polluting fossil-fuel era.
“I see myself prospering with this electrical energy challenge,” welder Bartholomew Soko advised Reuters TV within the village of Ndawambe. He plans to start out making door frames, tv stands and drying racks for plates, in addition to the bicycles he already repairs.
“If electrical energy is prolonged to different rural areas, it could assist individuals with disabilities be self-reliant,” Soko, who was injured in a automotive accident and makes use of a wheelchair, added.
In Malawi, greater than three quarters of the nation’s roughly 20 million inhabitants doesn’t have entry to electrical energy — the next proportion than the continental common of roughly half.
The price of solar energy has fallen by greater than three quarters globally over the previous decade.
The Sitolo challenge connects greater than 700 individuals throughout three villages, and native farmers not must trek lengthy distances to get their maize milled or sunflower seeds pressed.
Brenda Limbikani, a sunflower farmer, mentioned native individuals by no means used to develop sunflowers. “However with this oil-pressing machine, extra individuals have planted the crop,” she mentioned. “This 12 months the variety of farmers rising sunflowers is greater than ever.”
Source: PTI
