The structure

Model-based scenarios for rural electrification in developing countries

Rural Africa's low level of electrification is a topic of much discussion. One widely cited estimate is that only fourteen percent of rural households in Sub- Saharan Africa have access to electricity (2012). As a first step to improving access, most governments in the region have developed national electrification strategies. Virtually every one of those strategies recommends a two-track approach to providing greater access to grid-based electrification. Although there is widespread agreement on the need for a two-track approach, most national electrification strategies contain few, if any, details on how the two tracks should be implemented. This guide focuses on the regulatory and policy decisions that African electricity regulators and policy makers must make to create a sustainable decentralized track and how the decentralized track can complement the traditional centralized track.

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From the bottom up : how small power producers and mini-grids can deliver electrification and renewable energy in Africa

Benefits and challenges of expanding grid electricity in Africa: A review of rigorous evidence on household impacts in developing countries

Sub-Saharan Africa trails other regions in providing access to electricity for poor urban and rural residents. This poor performance can be linked to various factors, including political interference in utility policy, higher investment costs and lower profitability of extending service to rural areas. But a major obstacle to wider access is the high charges consumers must pay to connect to the electricity network. The connection charges in Sub-Saharan Africa are among the highest in the world, which has resulted in low rates of electrification in many countries. This paper reviews ways to improve electrification rates by addressing the issue of high connection charges. Essential to the success of such efforts is concurrent political commitment to identify, examine, and implement various low-cost electrification approaches and financing solutions as part of a broad plan to improve access. Electricity companies can lower their connection-related costs, and thus consumer charges, by using a variety of low-cost technologies and materials in distribution networks and household connections; making bulk purchases of materials; and adjusting technical standards to reflect the lower loads of households that use a minimum amount of electricity. Strategies for lowering connection charges may also include spreading charges over a reasonable period, rolling them into monthly service payments, subsidizing connections, or amortizing them through loans. Lowering connection charges is not the only step, but it is an essential part of any strategy for addressing the electricity access gap between rich and poor households in Sub-Saharan Africa, a gap that denies millions of poor Africans the benefits of electricity.

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Connection charges and electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa

The level of electrification in sub-Saharan Africa is low, with less than 10 percent of the rural households having access to electricity. One of the key barriers to accelerating access is the high cost of connections, arising, inter alia, from the use of outdated, unsuitable, high-cost methods in electricity networks. A second key barrier is the small and dispersed nature of electricity demand, arising from low density of population and low income levels, which lead to high average costs of providing electricity service. The objective of this report is to help in reducing the high costs of electrification by documenting proven, low-cost methods and techniques in electricity networks that have not yet become widely used in sub-Saharan Africa. The report is based on studies related to innovations in Tunisia, Ghana, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and field visits by an expert group of technical specialists to Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. The group found that these countries had very similar norms and standards for electricity networks, based on concepts imported during colonial times, with very little adaptation to local conditions having taken place. For example, existing technical standards allow for snow and ice loading in places that have never experienced such weather conditions.

Moncef Aissa

Papers

Sub-Saharan Africa : introducing low-cost methods in electricity distribution networks