- A UK-based charity has put in photo voltaic photovoltaic programs in all of all 9,000 households of a rural village in Malawi, Kasakula.
- The nonprofit has skilled native technicians to keep up the programs — and says it retrieves broken or retired batteries or different parts for now, as no system for safely recycling these exists in Malawi.
- Off-grid photo voltaic shortly and affordably supplies mild to the group. Picture courtesy of Kondwani Jere/SolarAid.
LILONGWE — 4 years in the past, a U.Ok.-based charity, SolarAid, got down to present solar-powered electrical energy to each residence in Kasakula, a village round 90 kilometers, or 56 miles, from Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
The challenge was geared toward demonstrating the potential for distributing and sustaining renewable power in rural Africa. At the moment, SolarAid says it has put in photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) programs in all the practically 9,000 households within the village.
Kasakula has a inhabitants of simply over 20,000. A lot of the village’s inhabitants develop crops like maize, beans and cassava for their very own consumption. Like many different settlements of this dimension, it boasts of two public secondary faculties, 10 main faculties and a well being middle. It additionally has numerous companies together with barbershops, video showrooms, and retailers promoting assorted groceries.
And, additionally like many different settlements of this dimension throughout Africa, few Kasakula houses are linked to the nationwide electrical energy grid. Residents right here, like a lot of their counterparts in different rural components of the continent, depend on paraffin lamps or candles for mild after darkish. This has additionally meant merchants within the space’s open market wanted to close down earlier.
When it launched, SolarAid’s challenge aimed to make vivid, secure, reasonably priced power obtainable to each family.
“We selected Kasakula as a result of it’s a distant and low-income group,” Courageous Mhonie, the charity’s common supervisor in Malawi, informed Mongabay by cellphone. ”We wished to check the viability of our mannequin in such a setting, and see if it was scalable to different components of the nation.”
The way it works
Every set up consists of a rooftop photo voltaic panel, a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery hub with USB retailers to cost cellphones, in addition to a tube mild and two LED lamps. Clients have the choice to decide on an enlargement package for home equipment that draw extra energy, equivalent to tv units and hair clippers.
The photo voltaic system parts are principally made in China, and, based on Mhonie, have a lifespan of three to 5 years.
SolarAid skilled 50 native individuals to hold out the installations, and to offer subsequent upkeep and customer support for customers.
Every family makes a weekly cost, equal to round 40 cents/week, for entry to energy from their system. When a buyer falls to make cost, the system shuts itself off.
SolarAid’s mannequin, which they time period “power as a service,” additionally means prospects can name on the nonprofit’s technicians for upkeep of their programs.
The group says if it collects 80% of doable income from Kasakula households with PV programs put in, this may cowl ongoing operational and upkeep prices of the tools and its crew of service technicians.
Earlier than set up, the significance of defending the PV programs from theft or injury is defined, and the members of the group service crew keep in touch with residents after the system has been arrange.
If Kasakula residents wished to purchase roughly equal PV and battery programs for themselves, they would want to stump up wherever as much as $150 — a steep cost for farming households that, for probably the most half, make lower than $200 in money revenue in a yr. That’s cash that additionally has to pay for necessities like medication or college uniforms.
“The challenge is sustainable and scalable. The funds from the houses are used to pay our native buyer representatives, in addition to to get better the system price to make sure that the challenge rolls to different rural areas,” Dalitso Kudala, SolarAid’s supervisor for the Kasakula challenge, informed Mongabay.
The challenge’s preliminary funding got here from the U.Ok.-based Turner Kirk Belief, with later assist coming from the DOEN Basis (established by the Dutch Postcode Lottery), the Switzerland-based Good Energies Basis, and the World Financial institution.
Disposal and sustainability
Malawi at the moment doesn’t have rules for the secure disposal of used PV system parts. As is the case in lots of different components of Africa, a cottage business has sprung as much as recycle or remanufacture used lead-acid batteries specifically.
In 2024, researchers learning the product life cycle of photo voltaic programs in Malawi recognized lead-acid batteries as probably the most environmentally damaging part of photo voltaic residence programs, with casual remanufacturing of those important parts releasing harmful ranges of lead into the setting, threatening the well being of recyclers and folks or animals close to their workshops.
The researchers warned that with most photo voltaic residence batteries needing to get replaced inside three years of set up, Malawi must undertake and implement rules on minimal requirements for battery high quality and create programs for the right disposal of used batteries.
Jones Ntaukira, managing director of Zuwa Power, one of many main gamers within the industrial residence photo voltaic system sector in Malawi, downplayed the chance of environmental hurt from used parts. He informed Mongabay that that each one licensed and registered corporations supplying photo voltaic residence programs had methods for disposal of used PV panels and batteries.
Whereas he didn’t present particulars, he stated licensed corporations like Zuwa hold observe of their prospects to make sure accountable disposal of broken-down batteries, accusing wildcat operators of ignoring this. “The batteries which might be irresponsibly disposed of are from the open market and are often smuggled into the nation. We’re fending [off] competitors from these low-quality programs by providing versatile cost packages for our prospects,” he stated.
SolarAid’s programs depend on LFP batteries, that are far much less poisonous than lead-acid batteries, and extra sturdy. Recycling or remanufacturing them after they attain the tip of their lifespan isn’t but doable in Malawi, however Mhonie stated SolarAid is targeted on upkeep to increase battery life whereas getting ready for that future.
“Previous batteries are being collected and saved for potential recycling sooner or later. We are going to collaborate with these organising recycling enterprise,” he informed Mongabay by way of e mail.
Influence and challenges
SolarAid has overcome a number of obstacles to convey the advantages of residence photo voltaic programs — already broadly loved by wealthier households — to rural houses the place money is in brief provide. Mhonie stated one of many main obstacles to wider adoption of residence photo voltaic programs in Malawi is the problem to find programs tailor-made for the low-income prospects that SolarAid’s “power as a service” mannequin is geared toward.
“To have a profitable challenge like that at Kasakula, satisfactory financing is required to import normal programs in [large] volumes to succeed in full scale,” he stated. Increasing this system to different areas would require overcoming limitations on funding and on entry to international alternate to pay for imported parts.
Mhonie, who can also be the president of Malawi’s Renewable Power Industries Affiliation, stated the challenge at Kasakula affords a beacon for offering sustainable and reasonably priced electrical energy to rural communities.
Banner picture: Putting in a photo voltaic PV system in Kasakula, Malawi. Picture courtesy of Kondwani Jere/SolarAid.
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Quotation:
Kinally, C., Antonanzas-Torres, F., Podd, F., & Gallego-Schmid, A. (2024). Life cycle evaluation of photo voltaic residence system casual waste administration practices in Malawi. Utilized Power, 364, 123190. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.123190
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