Project Summary
PowerPath is a social innovation project for rural Africa aiming to develop the next generation of solar technologies, smart energy management system and business model that will optimise the local value creation through an award winning, patented lateral electrification model featuring (i) a horizontal industry organization powered by local entrepreneurship; and (ii) a marketing concept that rests on a hybrid commercial offer with a fee for device and a fee for service.
Starting from the severely under-served country of Madagascar, the PowerPath project aims to develop and demonstrate innovative rural electrification solutions for Sub-Saharan Africa that are:
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Affordable: Radical affordability is at the core of the lateral electrification model. Its ambition is to divide by at least 5 the cost of electrification compared to conventional AC micro or minigrids and divide by at least ten the cost of electrification compared to national grid extension in predominantly rural countries like Madagascar. The rapid market penetration of Nanoé's solar nanogrids in the Malagasy rural electrification market in which over 80% of households live below the poverty line (compared to the 41% African average)is a reliable proof of the affordability of the proposed solution.
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Reliable: Despite their innovative nature, the project solutions are aiming at reliability. It is however the project partners' conviction that, in the rural African context where capital is expensive and labour cheap, reliability should not besought in over-investment on state-of-the art expensive and maintenance-free technologies but rather on significant investment on local maintenance capacity building and knowledge transfer.
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Low-carbon: The project electrification solutions are 100% solar.
Further to technological development, the business model of PowerPath addresses a plurality of challenges related to the deployment and maintenance of the technologies related to the nanogrids / microgrids as they focus to the training and strong participation of not-skilled community members without gender discrimination to become technically skilled agents of the energy expansion.
In this context the project addresses sustainable development goals: SDG-7(access to energy), SDG-8 (access to employment) and SDG-13 (development of sustainable energy practices).
Key objectives
The key objectives of PowerPath as designed to guarantee the model’s long-term sustainability and to maximize its scaling potential, are:
- To develop the microgrid interconnection module that will feature: (i) a power electronics board and casing; (ii) remote monitoring and metering capabilities for coordination with the nanogrid controller; (iii) state of charge estimation algorithm for maximisation of the batteries’ efficiency.
- To maximise the photovoltaics’ performance through the development and lab test and evaluation of low-cost super hydrophobic coatings for the solar panels that will enable optimal output/yield of the photovoltaic modules used by Nanoe.
- To deploy and test at scale 5 microgrids each interconnecting approximately 20 nanogrids.
- The upgrading of the financing model and schemes to include the new energy services.
- The development and roll out of capacity building training of local entrepreneurs with a focus to the new business model and the commercial, technical and legal issues related to the deployment and operation of lateral microgrids.
- The implementation of female-supporting best practice for direct implementation of our solution.
- To collect data from the demonstrations and analyse the life cycle, cost, environmental and social data relevant in order to establish critical assessments that prove our concept in the long-term use of the solution and calculate the real impact after full implementation.
- To define the expansion strategy of the large scale implementation of the technologies.