[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6415\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EConditions are right for off-grid electrification of Africa \u2013 Michael Gera, EAV\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEAV has received a EUR 10 million commitment from the \u003Cstrong\u003EEuropean Investment Bank\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;and recently made its first investment in a company called Off:Grid:Electric, based in Tanzania.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThere\u2019s a lot of buzz around electrifying Africa at the moment. Why now?\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018People now see that there is a very strong correlation between economic activity and access to power. If you are living in darkness you have less wealth, you live in fear of going out at night, your children can\u2019t study after the sun sets, your business has to shut down when it gets dark if it requires more than a kerosene lamp to operate. Access to electricity is the screaming need that underlies everything else.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Over the last 10 years the quality of governance in Africa has improved immeasurably. Governments are far more accountable than they used to be. This makes for an easier regulatory environment. The moment electricity becomes a shared good you have to have regulations and a good regulator makes a huge difference. Across Africa you are seeing a far more enlightened attitude. As a result, investors have begun to realise that there is a phenomenal economic and developmental potential locked up in the millions of people who cannot be integral parts of the economy because they have no electricity \u2013 and there are now millions of dollars of private investment to fix this problem.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAre there any new technologies you are particularly excited about?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018There\u2019s really clever technology enabling mini-grids. A mini-grid is where you have a local generation source \u2013 e.g. a solar farm just outside the village \u2013 supplying hundreds of households. One challenge has been how to affordably meter these households. It needs a significant reinvention of the concept of metering because you need meters that are very cheap and can also register the tiny amounts of power being used.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Another clever development is mesh technology, which allows these smart meters to talk to each other and send information up to the company so they can monitor consumption patterns.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018On the usage side we are seeing improvement, including lower power consumption, of appliances that work in an off-grid environment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018But at the end of the day success depends not so much on the new technology but on execution. The biggest skill we need is the ability to work in a remote community.\u2018\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESo the time is ripe - but why not wire everyone up to the grid?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018If you take a maize farmer in Iowa or sheep farmer in Scotland, their access to electricity is subsidised by the state. Someone has to run a cable over maybe 50 miles of fields, which is expensive. And the operating costs are extremely high because you lose a lot of electricity along the way. Yet the tariff for that farmer is more or less the same as for someone in the city. The state has taken the view that it will subsidise this set-up forever.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018There\u2019s a growing awareness that in Africa it\u2019s not going to happen that way. There isn\u2019t that sustained commitment to never-ending subsidies. Also, the population densities are really low coupled with a high growth rate.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018However, the good news is that Africa has a second chance to leapfrog a generation of technology. In the same way that mobile phones have obviated the need for landlines in much of Africa, significant reductions in the cost of renewable (especially solar) energy generation and data transfer via the mobile phone network have made feasible distributed, off-grid electricity generation\u003Cem\u003E.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Taken together, it is now economically and politically feasible to wire up a community off-grid.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EYou are trying to sell to the poor - how can it pay?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Yes, we are talking about the poorest of the poor in some of the poorest countries in the world.\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018Africa has a second chance to leapfrog a generation of technology.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EMichael Gera, Managing Partner and Co-founder, EAV\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The off-grid solar energy companies sell small 10 watt panels plus a battery controlling circuitry and lights\/ phone charge to each customer. The company will service units in case of issues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018They use pay-as-you-go technology\u0026nbsp; (each solar kit contains a SIM card that needs to be topped up with payments made via mobile phone in order to continue working until the cost of the panel is repaid). Most households in Africa seem to spend about USD 3 a week on kerosene, they don\u2019t have more than that. So, what solar home system providers aim to do is to enable their customer to pay for the system via a stream of affordable payments \u2013 ideally close to the USD 3 per week they are saving by switching away from kerosene. They typically pay using mobile payment systems such as MPESA in Kenya which pretty much everyone has.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0027As this technology is rolled out it will also create jobs for local people installing and maintaining the units.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIt can\u2019t be that simple \u2013 what are the obstacles to mass rollout?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018One of the most interesting challenges is lack of communication between the on-grid and off-grid worlds. On the one hand, you have the on-grid world, with the 150-year-old central grid model that has served so many so well. On the other hand, you have an intrepid band of off-grid entrepreneurs with innovative mini-grid and solar home system ideas.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We need better communication at the political and investment interfaces between the two communities. This would lead to capital being better invested.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow does the money get from big funders like the European Investment Bank down to rural African villages?\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Our fund, Energy Access Ventures, is a venture capital fund with an impact mandate. Impact investing is an idea that has emerged over the last years whereby you seek to judge your investments not just on the basis of return, but also their ability to deliver a social good. EIB, for example, allocates capital to funds or companies that have this dual mandate.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We fund entrepreneurial, relatively early-stage companies who are active in bringing electricity access into sub-Saharan Africa. Typically they are mini-grid or solar home system solutions adapted to their particular country of operation.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-xbjosxgxh4sfj-3243fjdio9pj-4fd2lx2rxqlljlao\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-xbjosXGxH4sfj_3243FJDIo9pj-4FD2Lx2rxQlLjlAo\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]