#distributed energy

African poverty is partly a consequence of energy poverty. In every other continent the vast majority of people have access to electricity. In Africa 600m people, 43% of the total, cannot readily light their homes or charge their phones. And those who nominally have grid electricity find it as reliable as a Scottish summer. More than three-quarters of African firms experience outages; two-fifths say electricity is the main constraint on their business.

If other sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed power as reliable as South Africa’s from 1995 to 2007, then the continent’s rate of real GDP growth per person would have been two percentage points higher, more than doubling the actual rate, according to one academic paper. Since then South Africa has also had erratic electricity. So-called “load-shedding” is probably the main reason why the economy has shrunk in four of the past eight quarters.

Solar power is increasingly seen as the solution. Last year Africa installed a record amount of photovoltaic (PV) capacity (though this still made up just 1% of the total added worldwide), notes the African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA), a trade group. Globally most solar PV is built by utilities, but in Africa 65% of new capacity over the past two years has come from large firms contracting directly with developers. These deals are part of a decentralised revolution that could be of huge benefit to African economies.

Ground zero for the revolution is South Africa. Last year saw a record number of blackouts imposed by Eskom, the state-run utility, whose dysfunctional coal-fired power stations regularly break down or operate at far below capacity. Fortunately, as load-shedding was peaking, the costs of solar systems were plummeting.

Between 2019 and 2023 the cost of panels fell by 15%, having already declined by almost 90% in the 2010s. Meanwhile battery storage systems now cost about half as much as five years ago. Industrial users pay 20-40% less per unit when buying electricity from private project developers than on the cheapest Eskom tariff.

In the past two calendar years the amount of solar capacity in South Africa rose from 2.8GW to 7.8GW, notes AFSIA, excluding that installed on the roofs of suburban homes. All together South Africa’s solar capacity could now be almost a fifth of that of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations (albeit those still have a higher “capacity factor”, or ability to produce electricity around the clock). The growth of solar is a key reason why there has been less load-shedding in 2024...

Over the past decade the number of startups providing “distributed renewable energy” (DRE) has grown at a clip. Industry estimates suggest that more than 400m Africans get electricity from solar home systems and that more than ten times as many “mini-grids”, most of which use solar, were built in 2016-20 than in the preceding five years. In Kenya DRE firms employ more than six times as many people as the largest utility. In Nigeria they have created almost as many jobs as the oil and gas industry.

“The future is an extremely distributed system to an extent that people haven’t fully grasped,” argues Matthew Tilleard of CrossBoundary Group, a firm whose customers range from large businesses to hitherto unconnected consumers. “It’s going to happen here in Africa first and most consequentially.”

Ignite, which operates in nine African countries, has products that include a basic panel that powers three light bulbs and a phone charger, as well as solar-powered irrigation pumps, stoves and internet routers, and industrial systems. Customers use mobile money to “unlock” a pay-as-you-go meter.

Yariv Cohen, Ignite’s CEO, reckons that the typical $3 per month spent by consumers is less than what they previously paid for kerosene and at phone-charging kiosks. He describes how farmers are more productive because they do not have to get home before dark and children are getting better test scores because they study under bulbs. One family in Rwanda used to keep their two cows in their house because they feared rustlers might come in the dark; now the cattle snooze al fresco under an outside lamp and the family gets more sleep.

...That is one eye-catching aspect of Africa’s solar revolution. But most of the continent is undergoing a more subtle—and significant—experiment in decentralised, commercially driven solar power. It is a trend that could both transform African economies and offer lessons to the rest of the world."

Electricity has traditionally been supplied centrally by a small number of companies, generated in large power plants and sent to consumers over long distances through large grids. Today, “distributed energy” is breaking with this model, transforming consumers into producers of clean energy.

Distributed energy refers to a range of technologies that generate electricity at or near the place of use, mostly through solar panels but also wind power. Such systems may supply a single structure, such as a house, or can be part of a micro-grid (a smaller grid connected to a larger electricity supply system), such as in a large industrial facility.

With this model, electricity no longer flows in only one direction, from the grid to the consumer. Instead, consumers can produce electricity for their own consumption, and also sell it to the market when they have a surplus, in some cases making a profit. This creates two-way flows and allows consumers to take control of their own energy demand.

Latin America and the Caribbean has seen a huge expansion of distributed energy, driven mostly by Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Chile and Colombia. The region went from just one gigawatt installed capacity of distributed systems in 2017 to 31.8 GW by 2023, the year with the latest available data, according to energy consultancy Onred. Virtually all of these installations use solar panels.

Distributed energy has thus become a major driver of Latin America’s energy transition, along with large, utility-scale solar and wind farms.

The region has long been established as a clean electricity leader thanks to its hydropower resources, and the International Energy Agency estimates the growth in its renewables will continue, with their share of the electricity supply projected to increase from just over 60% today to 80% by 2050.

How solar energy saved a Puerto Rican farm from Hurricane Maria

CONTENT SOURCED FROM REUTERS

While his competitors wait for diesel to restart generators knocked out by Hurricane Maria, flower grower Hector Santiago is already back in business because of solar panels powering his 40-acre (16.2-hectare) nursery in central Puerto Rico.

The Redox Flow Battery Market was valued at USD 200.3 Million in 2023 and is projected to grow to USD 551.7 Million by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.1% from 2024 to 2030. This massive financial expansion reflects a structural transition toward connected industrial hardware setups, which handle daily power quality metrics far better than old electrical backup generation systems. This massive industry wave is moving past simple novelty configurations into permanent infrastructure placements inside modern household layouts and corporate parks. Residential property planners now view digital long-duration setups as a core necessity for handling next-generation floorplans.

Mapping out the Accelerating Trajectory of Consumer Industrial Transformations

Evaluating current Redox Flow Battery market growth reveals that prominent real estate investment funds and hospitality chains are rapidly overhauling their indoor air and power management guidelines. Standard unmonitored floor systems can no longer efficiently attract high-paying corporate tenants who expect immediate cloud sync options for their facility performance data. Connected platforms provide direct, uniform cloud synchronization across multiple user profiles, ensuring that people maintain their preferred environmental metrics without experiencing software connection drops. Maintaining stable peak data tracking speeds allows premium wellness brands to consistently fulfill demanding software ecosystem promises.

Maximizing Floor Space Utilization and Production Resource Distribution Efficiency

By eliminating bulky external piping, wide ventilation columns, and massive structural wall-mount additions, product developers can completely redesign commercial layouts. Space-saving storage boards can be placed directly against flat drywall structures, drastically lowering space requirements for residential setups. This physical efficiency lets manufacturers sell massive cleaning and charging variety into small metropolitan facilities, where physical space is expensive but advanced tech is highly valued. Reclaiming valuable residential floor space transforms compact city apartment corners into multi-functional healthy living stations with zero structural remodeling.

Securing Operational Continuity Against Extreme Consumer Hardware Performance Shifts

What Would Consumer-Regulated Electricity Look Like? | Cato at Liberty Blog

What comes to mind when you try to imagine a truly free market in electricity? Many electricity policy experts would point to the advent of wholesale electricity markets and retail choice in some regions of the United States. Some economists (me included) would go further and advocate for the complete removal of government intervention in the electricity sector.

Many of us can’t picture a free market in electricity because the laws governing the industry have been so interventionist for so long. Today’s “natural monopoly” regulations date back to the late nineteenth century and became widespread by the 1930s. Policymakers were convinced (in some cases, by the utilities themselves) to preempt the anti-competitive behavior of electricity monopolies by 1) granting them legal monopoly privilege and 2) adding significant oversight such as “rate of return” regulation to mitigate monopoly behavior.

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One solution to the monopoly problem is to allow new, private utilities to develop and compete wherever they make sense. But to disentangle these new utilities from the massive regulatory red tape that has enveloped existing utilities for decades, they would have to be physically unconnected to existing grids.

At the societal level, the obvious upside to allowing competition is that we could finally bring a dynamic market process to the electricity industry. Who knows what innovations entrepreneurs could bring to the industry if they didn’t have to ask for permission from regulators? Allowing a brand-new category of electricity suppliers also addresses the looming challenge of sharp demand growth in the slow-moving electricity industry.

For state policymakers, private grids are a no-cost economic development plan. Rather than incentivizing new industries to locate in the state through tax credits or other subsidies, just getting out of the way of new developments would be a pro-growth policy. And if a new development fails, so be it—there’s no risk to taxpayers or ratepayers, unlike with projects built by regulated utilities.

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Sometimes the state level is the place to look for new answers. And when it comes to the idea of enacting truly competitive reforms in the electricity sector, states are in control. All it would take is a modification of the statute that created the state’s public utility regulations in the first place and a clear declaration that new private utilities—if they are not connected to existing infrastructure—will not be subject to monopoly regulation.

In the worst case, no one would take advantage of the new option. In the best case, a new type of industry would develop that would be faster, more customer-focused, and more innovative than anywhere else in the country.