TOWARD ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY IN AFRICAN RURAL AREAS

Cabrera Sánchez, José

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125102 Copy

Description

Title

TOWARD ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY IN AFRICAN RURAL AREAS

Author(s)

Cabrera Sánchez, José

Issue Date

2020-05-01

Keyword(s)

Electrification, Africa

Abstract

Electricity is the mechanism that makes possible to enter the modern world and it is taken for granted at any point in a developed country. Although the global rate of electrification has been increasing until 2018 when 89 % of the world population had access to a reliable source of electricity, there are still around 840 million people lacking access. The majority of them are located in Africa and Asia and some cases that must be pointed out are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Pakistan with more than 50 million unserved people each. The last decade meant a great advance. The share of global population with access to electricity rose from 83 % in 2010 to 89 % in 2017, that in real numbers means around 920 million people got access. Particularly, the electrification path started to accelerate in 2015 and in only two years, more people gained access than during the previous lustrum. Multiple international organizations such as the International Energy Agency, United Nations or the World Bank are currently working together with the same objective as goal: universal access by 2030. The annual rate to achieve it must be 0.86 % and although it is an excellent purpose, even during the years when the progress was the fastest (2015-2017), the annual increase was 0.8 %. To sum up, progress is not uniform and there are some countries that are improving faster than others. This is why two different categories have emerged. On the one hand, countries where the path is very high: fast-electrifying countries. They are located mainly in Asia. On the other hand, countries where little improvement was achieved during the last decade. This is the case in many countries in Africa and, particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa. The reasons why the improvement in Africa is so slow are many. The main cause of this situation is the particular instability in the majority of sub-Saharan countries whose origin could be the colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. The lack of national infrastructures and industry completely focused on a huge primary sector to export minerals, fabrics or other materials to Europe, absolutely distorted the production system of every country in the region. Practices such as corruption, briberies and monopolies became quite popular and are still nowadays in many of these countries. The increase in rural areas was greater than in urban ones between 2015 and 2017, but there is still an enormous gap. In fact, the rural deficit means 87 % of the total lack of access to electricity. This situation paints a bleak picture of the situation. Trying to achieve universal access by 2030 seems to be unrealistic since the places where the situation has to improve the most are those where it is very difficult to reach. Another point to consider is the approach of the implemented solution. Many current projects are based on the existing national grid whereas others rely on the creation of a new grid. Despite it is a great methodology to achieve total access in urban areas by means of interconnections among great towns, it leaves rural areas completely aside. Remote villages will not get access until the grid expands and reaches where they are, this issue could take decades. In the meanwhile, it is necessary to find a solution that makes possible to electrify these locations in a reliable manner. Another point to consider is finance. The average income is quite lower in isolated locations and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, even the population in cities lives below the threshold of extreme poverty. Therefore, it is necessary to find an approach to find a way for these people to achieve an affordable system to provide enough energy to ease their lives. i Another great problem to solve is clean cooking. The rate of population without access to clean fuels to cook has never stopped increasing since the population growth is outpacing the increase in access. Around 2.90 billion people were estimated to cook using polluting fuels in 2017. This is another sustainable development goal and it is quite associated with electricity, so any particular advance in the rate of access to electricity would mean an improvement in this issue as well. Among the benefits that electricity could bring there are some that are quite urgent. The healthcare situation in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly dramatic. By the electrification of health facilities, many more lives could be saved. Education would get a great improvement by electrifying schools. It would be excellent for children as well as for teachers. A significant section of the report is focused on one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, despite being the richest in resources: The Democratic Republic of Congo. The ethnic conflicts in the country are a constant since there is data. The unequal development in the country was significant before the 19th century. Once the Belgian Colonialism began, the country was totally devastated. Its economy was focused only on the extraction of rubber and minerals to be exported to Europe. There was not an industry development because there were monopolies ruled by the Belgian authorities. Once the colonialism concluded, multiple conflicts erupted and many civil wars killed thousands of innocent people. It is easy to understand the low rate of access to electricity and why this country is so poor nowadays. To find a solution for those isolated people until the Congolese Government gets to expand the national grid, an adequate option is to take advantage of the excellent insolation the country has. To do it, an off-grid installation is suggested. The standalone feature of the installation requires that the involved community organizes as a cooperative to divide the fixed costs of the farm to make the project affordable. A loan is required so micropayments are recommended to pay off this debt Another important point is that the installation must be modular to allow the system to grow its capacity if the community increases its consumption. Finally, the system must ensure a way to connect it to the grid once it arrives. This way, the photovoltaic farm would become another actor in the national electric system.

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

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