Abstract
The current electrification status in West African countries presents rural electrification rates below 40%, national grid losses above 39% with frequent disruptions, and electricity prices averaging $0.35/kWh, up to national values of $0.66/kWh. With this, off-grid systems have gained great attention during the last decade as energy solutions; especially solar home systems (SHS) and mini grids. Nowadays, 385 mini grids with a power of near 30 MW are operating in West Africa, with 95% based on PV. Since 2019, result-based tenders with international aid funding—more effective than previous competitive tenders—seek to install at least 317 new mini grids in Togo, 250 in Nigeria, 100 in Burkina Faso, and two in Mali. Besides, the market for mini-grid energy access start-ups grew from $19 million in 2013 to $339 million in 2018. Despite this recent development in West Africa, research and data for mini grids in this region is scarce, and it is mostly approached from the technological side, with a striking lack of information regarding the social impact. This work tries to describe the present status of research and current operating installations, as well as the main challenges for future development of off grid mini grids in West Africa, which pose as the missing link between SHS and grid extension.
Highlights
Further research was published by Cader et al (2016) [44], who compared the levelized cost of PV electricity (LCOE) differences between off-grid diesel systems and hybrid (PV–diesel–batteries) installations with geographical information systems (GIS) covering West Africa
There is a general lack of social analysis of mini grids that should answer questions such as social variables affecting the choice of mini grid versus solar home systems (SHS), strategies to improve social mini grid acceptance, daily profile use associated to the solar resource to reduce battery sizing and fuel use, evolution of mini grid load factor associated to community engagement and intrinsic economic development associated to the installation of the mini grid, smart metering technologies to improve transparency, impact of mini grid to gender and health, and cooking with electrical devices plugged into the mini grid versus traditional cooking with biomass
The fulfillment of the SDG7 in West Africa is extremely challenging due to a current electrification rate below 50%, which is especially low for rural populations
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Regarding the SDG 7.1 related to a “universal access to an affordable, modern, and reliable energy service”, the latest data show that electricity is unaffordable in terms of consumption for about 285 million people and in terms of the connection cost for 400 million, with a quality of service negatively affected with frequent disruptions, mainly in SSA [4] In this line, off-grid systems for self-generation such as solar home systems (SHS) and mini grids present as alternatives to national grid extension, while third-generation mini grids serve as back-up systems to improve the quality of electricity service in sites with previous grid connection, all expected to have high relevance in SSA [5]. Energies 2021, 14, 990 deployment; and Sections 5 and 6 suggest some future research lines, summarize the findings, and provide some recommendations to ease the extension of this energy source
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