10043594Electrifying Rural Development in Africa: displacing low-productivity manual labour activities and fossil-fuel generators in off-grid communities via a novel modular inverter design.ClosedFeasibility StudiesInnovate UKApproximately 1 billion people in Africa do not have reliable access to the electricity grid. The only option to access electricity is through fossil-fuel generators. However, the majority of women farmers are not able to afford generators and so are trapped in being reliant on manual labour, which limits productivity and therefore income. Mobile Power supplies affordable, clean power to poor households and enterprises in off-grid communities across Africa using a pay-as-you-go smart battery rental system. This feasibility project builds on previous Energy Catalyst Projects by focusing on a new product - a modular inverter - that complements the MOPO Batteries and enables off-grid communities to use AC appliances that are powered by affordable, clean energy, without any upfront costs. This project will create a new collaboration between Mobile Power and Dr Krijn Peters from Swansea University who has been researching in Sierra Leone and Liberia for 25 years. He studied the impact of the spread of motorcycle taxis(okadas) that enabled women farmers to begin to sell crops at local markets, facilitating the transition from semi-subsistence farming to cash crop production. Mobile Power's EC7 project was aimed at electrifying this okada revolution using the MOPOMax Battery and solar swapping stations to power electric-motorcycles and expand their reach, into areas where fuel is expensive or not available. ADDITIONALITY: This EC9 project will test the feasibility of a low-cost inverter that would enable the MOPOMax Battery to replace fossil-fuel generators in the Battery's 'Second Life' once it no longer can be used for e-mobility. Our hypothesis is that not only could the MOPOMax Batteries + Inverter undercut generators in cost, but they could also help the women farmers to increase their income by replacing some of the low-productivity/manual agricultural processing activities with mechanised ones. This is due to Mobile Power's pay-per-use model where the MOPO Battery and Inverter will be rented out whenever the women need the electricity. This fits with the irregular and infrequent patterns of energy use that rural farmers need for pumping, milling and refrigeration, depending on seasonal harvests. This irregular demand creates a barrier for women to purchase a generator and inverter, which are both too expensive if only needed for certain weeks of the year. In comparison, a women farmer can come to a MOPO Hub and rent a MOPO Battery and Inverter whenever she needs it, with no deposit, no credit check or fixed payment structure.