SolaNetWork

More than 80% of Africa's electricity is fossil fuel generated leading to climate change effects which disproportionately affect the sub-Saharan region. Around 588 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live without access to electricity and consequently struggle to escape poverty owing to a lack of basic services such as lighting, motive power, and access to media and communications. The importance of providing modern energy to rural areas is a high priority. Electrical grid expansion is possible but suffers high up-front costs to government and individual households.
The SolaNetwork project builds upon the successful demonstration of 'entry level' energy access technology developed in the progenitor SolaFin2Go project that addressed the challenge of providing standalone solar systems to make available affordable clean electricity and hot water for off-grid households in rural sub-Saharan Africa. SolaNetwork will scale-up deployments of Solafin2go technologies interconnected to form virtual and physical node-to-node networks. The project will develop, and trial in the field, a unified monitoring and control system which will provide real-time business intelligence and deliver customer interfaces to enable a Distributed Energy Service Company (DESCO). A not-for-profit DESCO will operate and maintain the stand-alone units and grid network; manage and administer electricity trading between community prosumers; and deliver targeted training to promote off-grid solutions and develop local capacity in the sector.
Whole community energy security will be delivered by a suite of interconnected solar technologies forming a four-tiered approach: 1-A core community solar power, battery bank, and communications hub will provide electricity, hot water and internet access to support essential public services and facilitate battery trading. 2-A wired-micro-grid of interconnected home and business prosumers will support the nearby core community hub. 3-A cable-free-grid based on a battery trading will serve prosumers who are remote from the community hub. 4-A wireless communications network will connect the wired and cable-free prosumers to the core community hub and facilitate energy management at individual user level and whole community scale to ensure security of supply for all.
The proposed SolaNetwork physical and virtual infrastructure will consist of Distributed Energy Generators complete with integrated sensors, controls and two-way communications enabling formation of a node-to-node and node-to-hub DC power distribution network consisting of both wired-micro-grid and cable-free-grid battery trading elements. Operations will be managed by a DESCO formed of community representative and project stakeholders who will also organise training and employment of local technicians to ensure operational sustainability. The aim is to demonstrate an 'organic bottom-up' approach focused on achieving outcomes in 3 key areas: 1) Technology Scaling and Networking; 2) Service Delivery and Finance; and 3) Training and Gender Empowerment.
Project activities will specifically include a number of positive actions that will target female engagement within the project. Directed consultations with female villagers through householder information forums will be used to disseminate project information and implications for the householder and community. Using a 'Balancing Benefits' tool for gender mainstreaming and inclusion, the team will ensure equitable relationships between men and women and a more socially enabling environment.
The SolaNetwork project is a partnership comprising two academic institutions and 4 industrial/commercial partners and one NGO with diverse and complementary interests in renewables and energy, telecommunications, infrastructure, finance and international development. The project will partner with the local community and other stakeholders to embed knowledge and skills and ensure a legacy of long-term sustainable success.

This project will bring together UK and African academics and industry partners to develop the SolaNetwork, addressing 3 fundamental elements of the energy trilemma: cost, emissions and security of supply in SSA. The partners will seek to maximise the impact of this research with the academic community, government and industry, including working with local SMEs that can produce the various services and components, thereby building local capacity and economic sustainability. The project will have a direct impact on:

Market: The global market for solar-home-systems (SHS) is estimated at 150M households and has grown 23% annually over the last 6 years. Over 65% of the SSA population live beyond the economic range of national grid expansion and represent a market of 480M people or about 100M households, growing at an annual rate of 2.3%. Taking a mid-range SDG7 cost of $1000 per household amounts to $125 billion of spending in SSA during the next decade. In Botswana (where the project is focused), there is an estimated $47M market. The project targets 50% exploitation of this ($24M) over the next 5-7 years and 0.5% exploitation of the wider SSA market ($625M) in the next 5-10 years. Developing the SolaNetwork and business models will be attractive to investors which will lead to more investment and deployment of the technology, thereby generating more growth and sales. This will have further impact in product development, design, manufacturing and IP generation.

Society: The whole community will benefit by encouraging private investments in solar energy access. This will result in increased solar value chain enterprises being created which will benefit the community at large. Increased job opportunities will result from the demand for solar products (installers, electricians and manufacturers/suppliers). New jobs will also be created through local project partners involved in new activities and supporting roles (such as the DESCO). Local community structures will develop through accelerating the transition to modern energy services in remote and rural areas, while also offering the co-benefits of healthy living, improvement of living standards, contributing to climate change, as well as positive effects on income growth and distributive equity in communities. At its core the project has a set of activities focused on supporting gender equality in the community. Community members who ordinarily would not have had the opportunity to access solar energy will now be accommodated through the project inclusion and 'Leave no one behind' methodologies and positive actions that target female engagement such as Women's Fireside Chats and training. Women of all socio economic groups will be engaged in localized village empowerment sessions to cover practical topics that women face in the energy sector.

Environment: The project will have a positive impact of the environment derived from an improvement in energy usage and efficiency; increased share of renewable energy; reduced dependency on imported fossil fuels, ongoing depletion of local (wood) fuel sources and predictable, reliable security of energy supply Industry: Various industrial sectors, in the UK and Africa could benefit from this research; they include SMEs' with interests in solar technologies and energy-finance management.

Policy Makers: Demonstrating the potential for a 'bottom up' approach to solar grid deployment combined with innovative virtual network, payment and customer management platform will be of significant interest to policy makers address the challenges of electrification in rural Africa, offering an alternative to electrical grid extension or standalone localised energy
generation.

Academic. The proposed project will benefit the academic community through three distinct mechanisms: interdisciplinary collaboration between the investigating team; contribution to new knowledge in different areas; outreach activities to the wider academic community.