Selection of renewable energy technologies for Africa: Eight case studies in Rwanda, Tanzania and Malawi
Highlights
► Eight case studies of RET implementations in three African countries described. ► Investigates validity of eleven factors previously identified in a Delphi study. ► Presents thirteen factors that must be consider for RET selection in Africa.
Introduction
The majority of the population in sub-Saharan Africa lives in rural areas and most of the people spend 5%–20% of their monthly income on fuel [1]. Currently, 23.6% of the total population in region have access to electricity while only 8.4% of people in rural areas have access to electricity.
The use of renewable energy resources is advocated to improve this situation because: renewable energy technologies are modular and require low initial investment, which can be incrementally expanded; the use of renewable energy technologies would imply less dependence on fossil-based fuels, which need to be imported in most cases and are subject to external price fluctuations; and the diversification of energy generation contributes to energy security provided that efficient, affordable and cost effective technologies are selected [2]. Furthermore, since renewable energies are those obtained from a natural, recurring and continuous outflow of energy in the existing natural environment, they have the obvious advantage of inherent sustainability and the absence of carbon emissions [2].
The general success rate of World Bank financed electric power projects is 68%, while the success rate of such projects in the sub-Saharan Africa region is estimated to be only 36% [3]. The authors believe that one of the reasons for this low success rate is that the factors that need to be taken into account during the selection of a renewable energy technology in Africa have not been investigated in depth.
Section snippets
The state of technology development in Africa
Technology management in developing countries is very different from that in developed countries. In developed countries the emphasis is on the control and utilisation of technology, as well as offsetting the undesirable consequences of technology. In developing countries on the other hand, because of the lack of skilled resources, the emphasis is on technology selection and transfer to achieve rapid economic and social development [4]. Technology transfer for sustainable development has,
Results
A summary of the data from all the case studies is shown in Table 3. The table lists the abbreviation for each factor as shown in Table 1 in the first column and all the sources of evidence for each case in the first three rows. The tick marks in the table indicate which source of evidence is applicable for the different factors.
The interviews conducted were transcribed. Pattern analysis was used the used to determine whether the interviews and secondary documentation supported the factors that
T1: Ease of maintenance and support over the life cycle of the technology
Ease of maintenance and support over the life cycle of the technology was found to be very important in all the examined cases. The main reason for this is that if the technology is not in working condition, the users will simply abandon it and return to their traditional methods [31], [32], [33].
Ease of maintenance and support is ensured in the various cases by implementing the following:
Quality installations. Poor quality undermines end user confidence in technology [31], [32], [33], [34].
Conclusions
The case studies conducted in three developing sub-Saharan African countries have confirmed that the propositions by Barry et al. [17], [18] are important. The wording of one of the factors has changed and two new factors have also been added to the list. The thirteen final factors identified during the case studies are shown in
Table 4, and have been described in this paper.
The authors believe that the use of these thirteen factors in the selection of technologies for energy projects would
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