FORESIGHT UNIVERSITY: TWENTY SPECIALTY PRACTICES OF ADAPTIVE FORESIGHT

 

Riga Photonics Centre (RFC) together with the Center for Photonics and Smart Materials (CPSM) of Zewail City of Science & Technology, a research university in Egypt, are building a consortium are building a consortium of research centers, firms, NGOs and governmental agencies to develop projects and programs to address the critical problem of creating access to electricity to people in Africa with 2030 set as the year to achieve that goal.  For more information contact Vidvuds Beldavs at RFC (vid.beldavs@rigaphotonicscentre.org) 

Electrify Africa - 2030

Concept

An international alliance formed to meet UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 for Africa:

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all people.

The Electrify Africa 2030 consortium is being created to address the important and urgent problem of over 600 million people in Africa with no connection to reliable electrical power.  This slows sustainable development and impedes adaptation to climate change in a vast continent of abundant natural resources and human potential stymied by the failure of traditional approaches to electrify the continent. Solutions are emerging to deliver broadband internet communications to people across Africa creating opportunities for information and communications, telehealth, government services and more.  Cell phone technology has opened a wide range of services including financial services for trade but cell phones must be charged and the cell-phone transmission towers and routers must be connected to a source of electrical power. Food security is emerging as a primary concern with reliable electricity offering the capacity for advancing agricultural practices, water pumping for irrigation, refrigeration of crops, cooking, transportation, and many other services.

Current trends indicate that the number of people in Africa with no connection to reliable electrical power could increase by 2030 despite construction of significant large-scale power generating and distribution capacity. If extreme weather events continue to disrupt electrical power distribution as in recent years integrated large-scale grids with points of failure that can disrupt service across large territories may need to be strengthened with microgrids with independent power generating capacity.  This could mean that micro-grids could serve as elements of large grids enabled by smart grid technology assuring reliable distribution of power both in areas of highly develop electrical infrastructure as well as areas such as much of Africa where such infrastructure is absent.

To electrify Africa by 2030 the following are needed:

-       Solar conversion and energy storage whose levelized cost of delivered power is highly competitive with all other alternatives.

-       Solar conversion and energy storage equipment that is easy to install, generates local jobs and that is financeable by users which may be individual households or local communities served by a microgrid.

-       Grid architectures that enable the buildup of large territorial and national grids from microgrids that distribute power generation or can link to large power generating facilities that take advantage of hydro, ocean power, large-scale solar, nuclear power, fusion or other large power generating facilities.

-       Major increase in energy harvesting and energy storage R&D capacity in Africa to serve manufacturing and power distribution needs across Africa.

-       Development of easy-to-use financing methods to enable rural communities and towns to finance construction and operation of microgrids including training of local personnel.

The project is aimed at advancing technologies for solar energy conversion and storage to improve energy conversion and storage efficiency while reducing total costs and to accelerate deployment to regions presently not connected to national electrical distribution systems.

Consortium partners include research organizations developing breakthrough technologies to

-       Exceed the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit (33.14%)

-       Develop manufacturing methods that cut the total installed cost of solar energy conversion and energy storage by at least 50%.

-       Develop grid architectures that accommodate local microgrids within larger regional, national and macroregional grids that enable interconnections to assure reliable power under all plausible scenarios including addressing disasters and extreme-weather events that currently can disable power across large regions.  This includes assuring reliability of delivered power across large areas that may be subject to disruptions due a wide range of causes including space weather (solar coronal mass ejection), extreme weather events, wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters as well as cyberattacks across a network.

The Consortium is intended to engage organizations across the value chain starting from research and development, to manufacturing, to systems financing, to deployment and operation.  Innovation has a critical role at all stages initially at the research stage, then conception of potential products that use the research, then innovations in manufacturing of the products, market introduction and deployment.  The purpose of the consortium is to accelerate the process to introduce the innovations as fast as possible as part of the climate change mitigation particularly for Africa and other developing regions which need to accelerate development to meet the needs of their people while controlling or ideally reducing GHG emissions.

Consortium partners could also include trade and professional associations, governments and civil society organizations that address aspects of the problem to accelerate energy technology development and innovation as well as innovation in systems including local systems involved in technology development across the full energy value chain including supply and demand.  On the demand side energy charging technology for telecommunications, vehicles, scooters, drones and other transportation equipment need to be part of the picture to accelerate technology development, equipment manufacturing, and deployment.

Electrify Africa 2030 over the ten year duration of the project

Year One

Kickoff event.  Conference overviewing the project and research and innovation activities at the partners to introduce staff exchange opportunities at the partners concurrently generating a database of researchers / project leaders who could be contacted regarding secondments

Year two – Month 4

Summary conference for Year One covering accomplishments and future plans

Year three – Month 6

Summary conference for Year two covering accomplishments and future plans

Year Four Month 9

Summary conference for Year three covering accomplishments and future outlook for the consortium and its mission thru 2030

Year five to end of project.

Role of UN and World Bank

Role of EU

-       EU-Africa Energy Partnership

-       Horizon Europe research and innovation funding