African Development Bank to provide technology to mini grid energy developers

The Sustainable Energy for All Africa Hub, hosted by the African Development Bank, recently signed a service contract with a consortium of GVEP International and INENSUS GmbH to provide technical assistance to developers of green mini grids.

The Sustainable Energy for All Africa Hub is implementing a green mini grid market development programme to facilitate across Africa the creation of a green mini grid movement and enabling environment funded through the Bank’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa. To achieve universal access to modern energy by 2030, as prescribed by the Sustainable Energy for All objectives, Africa will require substantial investments into national power grids, off grid solar home systems, and isolated mini grids.

The GVEP-INENSUS consortium will provide business development services to green mini grid developers, assisting them on a wide range of issues, from business planning, market development and grid design to project finance, grid operation and maintenance. The business development services helpdesk will be operational and open to requests for support from mini grid developers by July this year.

GVEP International, based in London, is a non-profit organisation that advises off-grid energy businesses, in order to reduce poverty through accelerated access to energy. INENSUS GmbH is a German consultancy firm for private sector driven mini grid electrification. INENSUS subsidiaries are mini grid utility businesses supplying electricity from wind-solar-diesel, solar hybrid power systems with battery storage, to customers in rural villages of Senegal and Tanzania.

Sustainable Energy for All Africa Hub Coordinator at the African Development Bank, Daniel Alexander Schroth, stressed that, “Mini grids are a key piece of the puzzle to solving Africa’s energy access challenge and a priority theme under the Bank’s New Deal on Energy for Africa. We are therefore delighted that we could mobilise with GVEP-INENSUS an experienced team to provide support to mini grid developers”.

For his part, CEO of GVEP, Ben Good, commented: “The technical assistance arrangements that GVEP-INENSUS are designing with the Bank, has the potential to add significantly to the pace of progress in the GMG sector in Africa. But this will only happen if it is centred on the needs of developers; it is therefore our objective to set new standards of client service in the delivery of this technical assistance.

The first phase of the Green Mini Grid Market Development Programme was launched in late 2015. The Programme operates alongside five business lines:

• Market intelligence relative to GMG development at the African country level
• Business Development Services
• Policy and enabling environment development
• Access to financing for GMG project developers
• Technical standardisation and quality control of mini-grids, which will be operationalised in a second phase of the MDP

The Green Mini Grid Market Development Programme works in close collaboration with other partners and it was also referenced in the G20 Action Plan on Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa adopted in October 2015. Africa has been at the forefront of implementation of the SE4All Initiative and the African Development Bank hosts the SE4All Africa Hub since May 2013 in partnership with the African Union Commission, the NEPAD Planning and Coordination and Planning Agency and the UNDP.

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