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Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number	ES/S000941/1
Title	Innovation and Scale: Enhanced energy access and local market development in sub-Saharan Africa
Status	Completed
Energy Categories	Renewable Energy Sources(Solar Energy, Photovoltaics) 10%; Renewable Energy Sources(Wind Energy) 10%; Renewable Energy Sources(Hydropower, Small hydropower (less than 10 MW)) 5%; Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electric power conversion) 25%; Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution) 25%; Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts) 15%; Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Energy Economics) 10%;
Research Types	Basic and strategic applied research 100%
Science and Technology Fields	ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) 10%; ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (Geography and Environmental Studies) 15%; SOCIAL SCIENCES (Economics and Econometrics) 15%; SOCIAL SCIENCES (Politics and International Studies) 10%; SOCIAL SCIENCES (Sociology) 10%; SOCIAL SCIENCES (Development Studies) 15%; AREA STUDIES (Middle Eastern and African Studies) 25%;
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation	Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Consumer attitudes and behaviour) 25%; Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Technology acceptance) 25%; Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Other sociological economical and environmental impact of energy) 50%;
Principal Investigator	Dr A B A Haney No email address given Geography OUCE University of Oxford
Award Type	Standard
Funding Source	ESRC
Start Date	01 September 2018
End Date	29 February 2020
Duration	18 months
Total Grant Value	£676,576
Industrial Sectors
Region	South East
Programme	Global Challenges Research Fund
Investigators	Principal Investigator	Dr A B A Haney , Geography OUCE, University of Oxford (99.999%)
	Other Investigator	Dr A Madhlopa , Faculty of Engineering and the Built Env, University of Cape Town, South Africa (0.001%)
	Industrial Collaborator	Project Contact , Makerere University, Uganda (0.000%) Project Contact , BOSCO-Uganda, Uganda (0.000%) Project Contact , Munich Advisors Group, Germany (0.000%)
Web Site
Objectives	The main objective of this research is to design integrated, actionable and transferable development strategies for local small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the renewable energy sector as a means of supporting rural electrification in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at scale. Rural electrification has been linked to livelihood improvements, literacy rate increases and income-generating activities. The United Nations has defined energy access for all by 2030 as one of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an objective that has direct implications for other SDGs. Yet in sub-Saharan Africa, rural electrification efforts to date have largely failed. The rural access rate is 15%, and over 85% of those roughly 700 million people without electricity access in SSA live in rural areas.Our overarching goal will require significant advances in the development of three main interconnected areas: business models, governing institutions and community engagement. Our approach is novel because we address the central question of providing rural electrification in SSA at scale in an integrated manner. We analyze businesses, institutions and communities both individually and jointly, focusing on the reciprocal interactions between each of the three pillars. The following paragraphs list the respective subordinate research objectives:1. Innovative business models: We will identify business models for local renewable energy SMEs that are capable of delivering rural electrification in SSA at scale. Business models will entail strategic planning, an identification of business development areas, an evaluation of technological alternatives, a design of unique value propositions aligned with customer needs, novel finance instruments for cost-recovery and a local human resources strategy. The resulting business models will be developed keeping in mind existing regulatory frameworks and communal engagement mechanisms. They will be designed to primarily benefit African energy SMEs. Crucial feedback mechanisms will be identified for understanding how business experience can both inform policies and support tailored offerings for communal needs.2. Institutional facilitation: We will design institutional setups that foster the development of renewable energy SMEs in SSA. This implies developing an effective rural electrification policy to address the needs of renewable energy businesses and support poor rural households in paying for electricity. Contrary to the current emphasis of international electrification initiatives in SSA, our institutional design efforts will be specifically aimed at supporting successful local, African SMEs to realize local capability increases and value creation in addition to electrification. We aim to understand how policies can be designed such that they are more closely aligned with local socio-cultural needs rather than top-down electrification targets. Enabling rural electrification at scale furthermore requires designing an efficient institutional apparatus with clear roles and responsibilities for the main public energy sector organisations, namely the Energy Ministry, the state agency responsible for rural electrification, the regulator, the public energy utilities, and business and community representative bodies.3. Community engagement: We will suggest case-specific community engagement and inclusive decision-making procedures which will enhance the role of communities in the development of sustainable, rural electrification in SSA. These mechanisms will be conditional on existing communal decision-making structures. This will require transparency about communal needs and past energy SME interactions. In addition, we aim to understand which finance mechanisms are capable of paying for the connection costs for end-users living in poverty, as well as how mobile money technologies can be used effectively to ease bill payment for far removed villages.
Abstract	Achieving energy access for all is a UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in itself, and directly facilitates the SDGs of sustainable industrialisation, sustainable cities and communities, and reducing inequality. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the most energy-deprived region in the world, arguably constitutes the greatest obstacle for realising these goals. An estimated 700 million people in SSA - the majority of them in rural areas -lack electricity access, a number that is only expected to rise as the continent's rural population growth outpaces capacity growth. The three SDG dimensions of achieving energy access - affordability, reliability and sustainability - each stand in stark contrast to the status quo: while the cost of electricity in SSA can be orders of magnitude higher than in industrialised countries, blackouts are frequent, and less than a quarter of energy supply comes from renewable sources. Energy poverty has impaired SSA's economic development since its independence in the 1960s, indicating that new approaches are urgently required.Given the extent of rural energy poverty, limited rural purchasing power and logistical difficulties, innovative, locally driven business models for the renewable energy sector are required to achieve comprehensive rural electrification in SSA. In particular, rapidly falling system costs have made renewable off-grid solutions the cheapest and cleanest option in many remote areas. However, three main issues have prevented sustainable electrification: difficulties in attracting international investment to small-scale renewables; inconsistent and often opaque regulatory and institutional frameworks; and a failure to include local communities, i.e. customers, in planning. Research to date is alarmingly scarce in all three of these areas in SSA.This interdisciplinary research therefore aims to design integrated, actionable and transferable development strategies for the local renewable energy sector capable of delivering comprehensive, sustainable rural electrification in SSA. Echoing the GCRF call's sentiment, we believe that the way to unlock this potential is via scaling up small to medium-sized innovative business models, institutional reforms and social inclusion strategies. The research pursues three mutually reinforcing areas of inquiry: suitable business models for a competitive local renewable electrification industry; optimal institutional arrangements to facilitate the development of the industry; and enabling community involvement, especially in rural areas. We deploy a comparative country case study approach, focusing on the contrasting situations of Uganda and Zambia, in order to increase the generalizability of our findings for other countries in SSA.The proposed project is deeply committed to deliver impact beyond academia. Identifying current barriers to scaling rural electrification and developing solutions to overcome them can only be successfully achieved through including local business, public sector and communal stakeholders. These stakeholder groups - including Uganda's and Zambia's regulatory and legislative bodies, local businesses, and civil society - will therefore be repeatedly engaged throughout and, where possible, beyond the project. We will use several channels to implement our results: practitioner reports targeted at African renewable energy SMEs and energy regulators; the development and implementation of innovative business models, including novel financing and revenue schemes developed with community input; a digital SME renewable energy network where different companies in SSA can directly engage with one another; workshops to convene all stakeholder groups; private one-to-one meetings with public sector representatives; and research seminars at local universities to train future decision-makers. Given our focus on a local, African-owned and -run industry, we also foresee further benefits for local employment and knowledge creation.
Publications	(none)
Final Report	(none)
Added to Database	25/09/18