The global need for action on substantial renewable energy development is evidenced in Sustainable Development Goal #7: to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
This is no easy task, though. 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa currently lack electricity access and 50 per cent of businesses in sub-Saharan Africa say they are hindered by their lack of reliable electricity. Reinforcing SDG7, the Paris Agreement on climate change, set out by 196 UN member states in December 2015, put renewable energy front and centre of the mission to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming, with solar energy a focal source.
As the Paris Agreement was worked out, key global players announced significant initiatives to fund renewable energy in Africa and around the world, totalling billions of dollars over the next 15 years. Even before the climate conference in Paris, however, the scaling up of off-grid solar energy generation has been making steady progress.
Since July 2014, Crown Agents has been supporting the DFID-funded Solar Nigeria Programme (SNP) on an ambitious project to substantially scale-up the electrification of communities in Lagos State and states in the north of Nigeria. It is in regions such as these that limited access to electricity most obviously constrains human development outcomes.
Rural communities that lack access, and urban communities that lack reliable supply, have to turn to diesel generators and kerosene lanterns for light and power, but they are high cost, carbon intensive and detrimental to health. Photovoltaic (PV) solar generation has the potential to close much of the access gap by displacing the reliance on diesel and kerosene, and its scalability is ideal for satisfying the low and dispersed nature of rural demand.
SNP is focusing on the electrification of public institutions – chiefly schools and hospitals – to improve public welfare outcomes. Putting a number on it, the key outcome of the Lagos phase of the programme is to improve the welfare of over 200,000 users of these institutions.
To help achieve this Crown Agents’ procurement and logistics work has contributed directly to one of the critical outputs of this programme: the successful installation of functioning PV solar generating systems at 172 schools and 11 Public Health Centres (PHCs) in Lagos State with a total installed generating capacity of 4 Megawatts peak (MWp).
We are currently undertaking procurement and logistics for a further 40 PHCs in Kaduna State, with a combined installed generating capacity of 1.7MWp. For the work in the Northern Nigerian state of Kaduna, Crown Agents is also providing technical assistance (TA) to directly engage the solar system designers, project engineers and installers. In this TA role, our procurement and technical specialists have worked with SNP to define and document the terms of reference (TORs) for the solar design and engineering component of the project.
Working together with the designer, we prepared detailed technical specifications for the procurement, installation, construction and commissioning of the 40 solar systems. The SNP anticipates that a further 25,000 people will benefit directly from the installations of these systems, through improved access to vital health services delivered through the PHCs.
From our work on this project, we’ve taken away a number of key highlights that demonstrate how programmes such as these can make tangible and sustainable advances towards SDG 7, including:
1. Solar power installations like those in Lagos and Kaduna are bringing new and sustainable streams of business to local distributors and installation specialists. This is helping to support the growth of the local economy by building the capability of the local private sector to supply and install solar projects from within Nigeria.
2. Solar power is versatile and the technology required to implement it continues to drop in price and improve in durability, making off-grid solar increasingly affordable. The off-grid PV system designs for Lagos and Kaduna take advantage of the latest, most durable PV solar technologies and will be built to survive in remote locations, requiring minimal maintenance and support. The modular PV systems can be configured to meet the total energy requirements for each PHC and contain substantial energy storage systems (ESSs) – or ‘battery banks’ – that ensure power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They are designed for a ten-year lifespan, although the batteries can last significantly longer and the PV panels have a 25 year power output guarantee.
3. Off-grid solar installations are quick to install and make an immediate difference. Quite simply, they provide children with light and power in their schools. As well as this, the construction of the free-standing units also provides children with shelter under which they can congregate to read or do their homework or just socialise in a hospitable environment.
Moreover, this work demonstrates how donors, development consulting organisations and the private sector can work together to tackle the enormous challenge of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa.
These projects show that the momentum, the will and the capabilities are in place to make off-grid solar power work on a small scale, providing a foundation for the scaling up of similar work, assisting Nigeria as it makes steady progress towards SDG7.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Crown Agents, a sponsor of the Guardian Global Development Professionals Network.
