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Financing Energy Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa

  This is a the first of a multi-part series examining alternative methods for electricity utilities in debt distressed countries to uncover the investment financing required to rebuild critical infrastructure to improve efficiency, modernize and continue to serve to population with cost reflective tariffs. While renewable based minigrids are seen as the key to improving electricity access and feed sectionalizing and fault location and isolation the keys to reliability and resilience, all of these infrastructure projects require funding – funding that is often directed towards debt servicing or other essential services. We are not discussing overnight solutions but rather longterm sustainable practices that are firmly grounded in the principles of sustainability and circular economy. Independence, self-reliance and strong frameworks are some of the key requirements to starting this journey.   Part 1 : Introduction As countries in sub-Saharan Africa continue to grapple wi
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The Distribution of Energy and Role of Automation

Originally published in Automation &Distribution Journal, June/July 2021 https://www.industr.com/en/_storage/asset/2614823/storage/master/file/21676648/A&D%20Jun-Jul%202021.pdf Energy distribution systems, an inter-networked and intricately balanced collection of sources and load, are experiencing a time of unprecedented change. Following decades of underinvestment, energy systems have become a priority area to address local issues of critical infrastructure rebuilding and resiliency as well as customer empowerment while also supporting the wider goals of climate change, energy sustainability and economic development. Automation, which is an inherently data driven effort, has become an integral part of the energy industry. Evolving from pneumatically driven components designed to mimic manual human actions, initially automation was implemented through relay logic or a series of standalone controllers, depending on the industry sector. Today, programmable control
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Microgrids: Building Block of the Grid - A Perspective on the Evolution of the Grid

Microgrids – Building Blocks of the Grid There has been much discussion over the past years regarding microgrids and intentional islanding.  Much of the talk results in polarized viewpoints regarding the development, implementation, usefulness and practicality of renewables based locally controlled distributed microgrids. Microgrids have evolved from practical, mobile and reliable power networks and from pockets of consumers around a consistent power source to distributed models using virtual power plants and distributed generation together with designed for purpose equipment on traditional distribution networks.  However, the underlying theme appears to be reliability and resilience – even for utility owned and implemented systems. As microgrids and DERs in general continue to proliferate, how will the grid evolve to be able to best capitalize on the features provided by these building blocks? Up until recently, the integration of renewable energy sources has been sporadic a
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Decentralization of Energy Resources

The electric power system, an inter-networked and intricately balanced collection of electricity generation and load, is experiencing a time of unprecedented change. Following decades of underinvestment, the power system has become a priority area to address the local issues of critical infrastructure rebuilding and resiliency as well as customer empowerment while also supporting the wider goals of climate change, energy sustainability and economic development. This includes a number of areas of focus including localized issues such as capital infrastructure deployment strategies, energy resiliency, and support of an electrified transportation infrastructure in addition to more broad issues such as the development of distributed energy resources (DER) both as standalone energy providers and as building blocks to the larger grid. In particular, the grid of today is characterized by the technological maturity, declining cost, and commoditization of DERs. Such DERs are generally compri
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