The Global Community for Sustainable Energy Professionals
1 hour / Central European Time (Brussels, Paris, Berlin)
In partnership with REEEP/SERN.
In remote areas of developing countries, access to sustainable energy systems remains often unaffordable for inhabitants. Therefore, special energy supply models and regulatory frameworks adapted to the context of off-grid rural areas need to be implemented to support the dissemination of these systems.
This webinar, hosted as part of the Leonardo Energy Initiative's regular energy webinar series, features Dr Xavier Lemaire of the Sustainable Energy Regulation Network (SERN) – a REEEP sub-network based at the Centre for Management under Regulation, Warwick Business School (UK). Dr Lemaire will explore how regulators can set a framework for cost-effective and sustainable rural energy services in these remote areas.
Energy supply models in rural areas can rely on various forms of ownership. Notably, it seems that a well-articulated public-private partnership (or public-community partnership) can contribute to deliver cost-effective energy services. With a flexible offer of hybrid electricity systems and the adding of various energy services, small energy companies could usefully complement the role of conventional utilities.
Off-grid regulatory frameworks have to take into account the small size of providers in rural areas. While regulatory agencies need to protect consumers and guarantee the quality of service standards provided by local providers, often in a situation of monopoly, they must also be careful of not over-regulating them.
This webinar will draw on cases from rural electrification programs with PV solar in Southern Africa to start a discussion on the advantages of different delivery models, notably of the utility/fee-for-service model compared to other schemes. It will then focus on the design of simplified regulatory frameworks for integrated rural energy providers.
Comments
Normal
0
21
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}Q&A Session
Q&A focused on regulation, institutional and policy issues linked to off-grid generation and particularly large scale dissemination of solar systems.
All the documents and web links mentioned can be found on the web, notably in the SERN off-grid regulation group. The SERN working groups can be found in the community part of the of the REEEP website: http://www.reeep.org/. You will need to register just by creating a user name and a password to access this part of the website.
Glossary
SHS : Solar Home System
Q: What is the market niche for 500 kW - 2 MW?
To take the figures generally used: PV-hybrid is generally in the range 1 kW- 100 kW. Over that it can be hydro mainly for 100 kW- 10MW/25MW, wind generation… I’m not sure we can say there is a specific niche market for 500 kW-2MW. Biogas plants may be often found in this range of 500 kW – 2MW.
Q: What about a portable solar generator?
The use of portable system in developing countries is mainly small-scale one like for instance solar lamps. Maybe portable solar generator can be useful in emergency situation for NGOs who need to get energy for purified water for instance? I’m not aware of any regulation particularly targeting or mentioning portable systems like the one you are referring to. So I would think they may be treated as their non-portable equivalent.
Q: What are the economic and technical performance mini grid assessment tools that will allow a high level feasibility assessment to be done?
Please see part of the mini-grid manual uploaded in the SERN rural electrification group for the methodology. IEA PVPS Task 11 has done some work on this. Please refer to the series of power presentations on current software tools for PV hybrid and mini-grid systems from this group, notably http://www.iea-pvps.org/ and specifically http://www.iea-pvps-task11.org/
Otherwise on PV, please also refer a good updated list at:
http://www.appropedia.org/Solar_photovoltaic_software#cite_note-5
Q: Is there a niche for geothermal grid applications?
Commercial Market surveys have been done. Please see notably: http://www.absenergyresearch.com/energy-market-research-reports/renewable-energy-market-research-reports/1139338/reports/geothermal-report-Ed-4-2007
Otherwise, you can contact associations like: GEOTHERMAL ENERGY ASSOCIATION, 209 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Washington, D.C. 20003 Phone: (202) 454-5261 Fax: (202) 454-5265 www.geo-energy.org
Q: A house may need around 5 kW Max and for say a 200 house village you may need 1MW not considering diversity?
In rural areas of developing countries, we talk often more of very small generation as people have very low income anyway. So in a range of 50 Wp – 100 Wp with DC for an individual solar house systems to cover few bulbs and a socket for a radio/TV. After that you can add a fridge and other appliances with an inverter DC to AC. A 1kWc/5kWc installation can be considered as a quite high standard that you can find mainly in industrial countries or for the affluent middle class in developing countries.
As every appliance of all households is not connected at the same time in a mini-grid design, you do not need to add all the maximum peak loads. See the manual on mini-grid and the tools already mentioned in question 3.
Q: Do you have suggestions for providing solar-generated electricity to rural clinics, schools and other community service organizations? This seems to be quite different from home solar systems.
As rural clinics (if they are small health centers), schools and other community service organizations do not need necessarily a very big load, numbers of solar installations have been implemented around the world to provide energy for this type of users.
Even if the size of the installation is bigger (e.g. schools can be 800 Wp like with the solar program for schools in South Africa against 50 Wp for an individual Solar Home System), the principles for the design and implementation of the systems are the same.
The maintenance can be done by small entrepreneurs like for Solar Home Systems, but as they are often public administration, the contract can be different. It is important that delays of payment from the administration are not too long. Costs will depend of the level of service required/size of the building/number of staff/pupils and if you consider basic requirements or higher standards.
Q: Which markert driven model may work in Zambia? Thanks.
Three small ESCOs (Energy Services Companies) covering each 100-150 users have been operational in Zambia since 2000-01. It seems that this kind of small enterprises could be scaled up and extended to other parts of Zambia.
Please see the case study I’ve produced for REEEP on Zambian ESCOs in the SERN Capacity Building in Africa group.
Q: In your opinion, how do you rate the use of renewable energy sources in solving the electricity generating capacity short fall in Sub-Saharan African countries (perhaps through the use of feed in tariffs with the help of the UN)
Feed-in tariff policies are currently starting being implemented in some African countries (Kenya, South Africa, maybe soon Nigeria and Egypt).
Now even if probably getting soon more and more widespread in Africa, renewable energy policies will not in the short-term solve the generation capacity shortfall. Implementing ambitious energy efficiency policies could be relevant, as the cost of negative MW is always lower to the cost of adding renewable MW (especially in Africa where a lot could be done easily in the field of EE, due to the inefficiency of the current energy systems + sometimes the high level of losses in the network).
In the mid-term/long-term, the very important decrease of the cost of solar (and also wind) combined with the high level of solar radiation in a lot of African countries could mean that at some point solar energy could provide substantial amount of energy in Africa. In the immediate, some renewable technologies like biogas and hydro (where Africa has a huge untapped potential) could be used. This implies substantial investments and long-term policies.
Q: What is the typical size of remote community power systems?
Depending of the size of the community and the level of centralization of the system adopted. Typical size of individual solar home systems is generally 50-100 Wp. Centralised mini-grids with PV in rural areas can be anything from several kWp to 100 kWp. Biogas plants up to 2 MW…
For instance average values on a sample of 34 systems for a survey on hybrid mini-grids done by IEA PV task 11:
Population served: 1,500 inhabitants
PV: 87 kWp
Genset: 110 kVA
Wind turbines: 5 kW
Batteries 5 kAh
Q: Do you think that a national program of CDM for SHS could be a good solution? How could it be promoted?
Transactions costs with Clean Development Mechanisms are quite high compared to the very small size of SHS and the number of SHS to monitor. So bundling programs may be of interest. This could be organized at a national level through electricity rural electrification agencies. Otherwise, please see the document for a reflection on streamlining CDM procedures for solar home systems in SERN documentation and the last methodology approved by UNFCCC for electricity generation by the user. The website of UNFCCC on CDM:
http://cdm.unfccc.int/index.html
There is one large scale project with 100,000 SHS approved by UNFCCC in Morocco. http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/DB/TUEV-SUED1134746545.91/view.
Q: Why to restrict the subsidies for O&M costs in the SHS when they are applied to the grid user through the social tariffs?
Subsidies for SHS can cover both investment costs and O&M costs. The social tariff mentioned for instance for South Africa (Free Basic Electricity) is a tariff for grid-user but a similar version exist for off-grid users to cover part of the monthly fee. Now connection costs for on-grid users and installation costs for off-grid users are largely subsidized.
On subsidies, please see the paper of the World Bank “Subsidies and Sustainable Rural Energy Services” from the World Bank (copied in the SERN group).
Q: A lot of work has still to occur in Rural Electrification (RE) worldwide and I believe one should address directly productive use of power in order to allow both a human and economic development. Amongst the technologies presented during the conference, do you see any technology that could address the issue of providing power for both private and productive consumption, or would you recommend a mix of technologies?
Small load for productive use like lighting, mobile charging, computers and fax for shops, very small businesses or very small local administrations can be covered by PV alone. In that case PV contributes to increased productivity.
Now diesel (or when available hydro, wind,…) are needed to cover medium/large load like for instance for small craft industries or small administrative buildings who serve also as private residential buildings.
So, in general a good combination can be to cover basic load/minimal backup system with PV and to cover peak demand for instance with diesel. So the diesel system does not need to run for low load and the sizing of the PV system remains reasonably small.
Combinations with diesel + other RET are possible according to the availability of the energy resource: wind + diesel for instance is a good combination, when the installation is located in a medium to high potential wind area.
Q: Which combinations of technologies are used in micro-grid configurations?
As mentioned previously, all kind of combinations are possible with some diesel to cover peak load to avoid the costly over-sizing of renewable systems (or when renewable systems will not be sufficient to generate enough power anyway): wind + diesel, solar + diesel, micro-hydro+ diesel…
Q: The examples are interesting. I was involved in the SHS program in KwaZulu Natal in RSA. A general problem though is sustainability. At UNEP, we are looking to facilitate financing models that will stimulate a lasting market for more RE/EE installations. Do you know of such financing models?
There are various financing models with either bank guarantees, or loan to small companies, or subsidies. See in SERN rural electrification group the document on” Solar Photovoltaic in Africa: Experiences with Financing and Delivery Models” gives a good overview. You can find documents of interest notably the one on “Financing Mechanisms for SHS in Developing Countries” from IEA PVPS Task 9 which is again a good source at: http://www.iea-pvps.org/
For South Africa, you may be aware of the work done by Restio Energy http://www.restio.co.za/ with a number of publications available, notably the REEEP funded project on Integrated Rural Energy Utilities in Africa (two main reports copied in the SERN group on rural electrification).
Q: It has been mentioned that it is possible to produce 1MW of electricity via solar generators; then how feasible is it to connect a series of these generators stretched over several rural areas to improve capacity, thereby selling off the 'excess capacity' produced to business or small scale manufacturing companies
I would think if such generators were implemented on vast areas, that the cost of interconnection will be high. It could be advisable to have smaller solar generators directly near end-consumers. Till yet, the interest of PV solar is it is modular and decentralized, with the source of energy (solar radiation) available everywhere on large areas (on the contrary of other renewable energies often more localized). So this enables to generate power near where it is needed and the installation needs to be sized precisely to meet the local demand. Larger interconnected system could generate power with less necessity of storage balanced by high cost of interconnection.