The Lake Turkana Wind Project (LTWP) in northeastern Kenya, spanning 40,000 acres, will provide the country’s national grid with 300 MW of wind power capacity, or a fifth of the country’s installed electricity capacity. Construction is due to begin imminently and the facility is expected to be online by 2016. Three hundred and sixty five wind turbines will generate the energy at the farm.

«All is progressing very well now and hopefully the long awaited final notice to proceed on the transmission line will be in place this week,» said Carlo Van Wegeningen, Chairman, Lake Turkana Wind Power. «This is the last CP we are waiting for to allow to proceed and commence construction,» he added.

According to Van Wegeningen, the project will have huge benefits. «It will increase the power generation capacity to the country by 17 percent. At EU € 0.0752 per kWh LTWP will be the cheapest new and clean source of power in the country after geothermal,» he said. «Today’s average cost of power in Kenya stands at approximately EU € 0.12/kWh. LTWP will save the Kenyan economy some $150 million a year in fuel replacement costs. It will contribute $1 billion in income tax payments over the life of the project,» Van Wegeningen added.

As well as the Lake Turkana farm, a number of other wind power projects are in the pipeline in Kenya. They include the Kipeto Wind Project in the Rift Valley Province, which will have a capacity over 100 MW; a 90-MW Electrawinds project in Lamu; and the 61-MW Kinangop wind farm project in central Kenya under UK-based wind turbine supplier Aeolus Power.

Kenya’s wind energy potential is high, say experts. Wind speeds of as much as eight to 14 meters per second are being recorded in several areas of the country, making wind-powered electricity production attractive on a commercial level as well as an environmental one. The government is keen to boost its intelligence about the best sites for wind farms and has set up 61 wind masts and data loggers all over the country over the last three years to this end. It plans to erect 34 more this year. After gathering sufficient information, the state plans to offer the best sites for wind power generation up to investors.

Solar Power On the Grid Not as Strong 

In contrast to Kenya’s booming wind power sector, Kenya’s solar policy has been beset with confusion. In January, The Guardian reported that the country planned to source half of its energy from solar by 2016 through a plan to invest $1.2 billion jointly with private firms to install nine major solar power plants across the country. The government has announced no such plans.

On the other side of the spectrum, in November last year there were media reports that the country’s government had suspended new licenses for solar plants and wind farms until 2017 and would focus on cheaper non-renewable energy sources instead in a bid to slash electricity costs. Insiders deny that this is the case. «There is no sign that there is any official moratorium, no high ranking official has said so. Kenya seems very much still open for business in this regard,» said Janosch Ondraczek, a researcher on solar energy in East Africa and a project manager for renewable projects at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Ondraczek points out that on grid solar energy production does not feature in the aforementioned investment prospectus and enthusiasm for solar on a government level is weak.

«There is much less conviction from the government that this is what they want to pursue,» said Ondraczek. «There is very little mention of solar in the document and on-grid solar has no mention at all. The government effectively foresees that solar will contribute zero percent of power generation on-grid,» he adds.

Ondraczek also points out that the government’s preference for wind energy over solar is considerable.

«Wind has been around for longer than solar and people are only just starting to lobby properly for solar projects in Kenya. The state also sometimes points to some evidence that suggests wind is more competitive than solar but this is based on outdated numbers. Technology and costs improvements are constantly being made when it comes to solar and it is catching up with wind,» he added.

Insufficient subsidies for solar projects have prevented the industry from really taking off, argues Ondraczek. «Despite the fact that feed in tariffs have been in place for a few years nothing significant has really happened because of insufficient subsidies,» Ondraczek said. «The tariffs for sale are not sufficient to facilitate any major uptake,» he added, pointing out that this is perhaps unsurprising for a sub-Saharan African country; they have limited funds to «play around with subsidies,» Ondraczek argues. 

Off-grid Solar Steadily Rising

Although the government has limited enthusiasm for on-grid solar projects, it has pursued a policy of ramping up off-grid solar production in rural areas as part of its 2009 Rural Electrification Master Plan. So far around 744 public places in isolated areas, from health centers to schools, have been hooked up to off-grid solar power through the initiative. Demand for PV panels is estimated to have risen by around 200 kW peak. Five off-grid stations have been put in place and as they enjoy solid internal rate of returns of 20 percent, the operation is being expanded to build new plants and also make existing ones bigger.

It seems the same phenomenon may be happening in the electricity sector. Will microgrids allow developing nations to leapfrog past the large, sprawling transmission systems of the industrialized world into a new energy paradigm? Some examples from around the world are already proving that to be true. According to Navigant Research, the global remote microgrid market will expand from 349 megawatts of generation capacity in 2011 to over 1.1 gigawatts by 2017. In many regions of the world there may be no other option for people to get access to electricity than through renewable-powered microgrids. In other areas that do have grid power, the power can be so unreliable that microgrids offer a safer, more reliable alternative.

Microgrids Bringing Light to the Powerless

Many regions of India plunge into darkness when the sun goes down. As India’s population explodes, relying upon centralized coal plants to fuel the expanding economy is not a viable solution. Microgrids may offer the best answer for the 61 million Indian households that still do not have access to electricity.

There are currently about 200 villages in India that get their electricity from renewably powered microgrids. Mera Gao Power builds and operates solar-powered microgrids in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states. Four solar panels and four batteries provide enough power for 100 households to each have four LED lights and a cell phone charger. The households pay $0.50 per week. Husk Power Systems uses rice husks to provide electricity to villages through biomass gasification. Its 32-kilowatt system electrifies villages of 500–700 households. SunEdison’s 14-kilowatt solar-powered microgrid replaced kerosene lamps for 400 residents in the remote community of Meerwada. Villagers pay $1.00–$1.50 a month — equal to what they were paying before for diesel and kerosene — for a better quality light and the option to power home appliances.

Microgrids are sprouting up on the African continent as well. In Mali, where 93 percent of the rural population lacks electric power, kids in remote villages are eating snow cones thanks to SharedSolar’s solar-powered microgrids. Columbia University’s Earth Institute developed SharedSolar to find a better system of supplying electricity to rural areas than unaffordable individual solar home systems. It developed a fully contained, scalable microgrid that includes solar PV, batteries, and meters.

Each system powers 10–20 households, with each household having a prepaid meter that it can refill by making a payment via a cell phone or by paying the local manager (usually the person who used to sell kerosene). In sun-drenched Mali, currently 172 households are benefitting from nine SharedSolar microgrids.

Perhaps one of the most appropriate places for the implementation of microgrids is in island communities. Monte Trigo is a village on Cape Verde’s westernmost island. The 60-household community is only reachable by boat and is completely dependent on fishing. Previously, the fishermen had to travel five hours by boat each way to purchase ice to preserve their fish. Now, with a 27.3-kilowatt solar microgrid they have reliable power at their fingertips. The microgrid delivers power to homes, a school, a church, a health center, three general stores, and streetlights.

The key to the success of this microgrid is the concept of Energy Daily Allowance, an agreed upon maximum amount of energy the homeowner can use. Each user has a meter that shows the available energy allowance and includes a signal to encourage or refrain consumption depending on energy use and amount of sun.

Microgrids for more Reliable Power

Bringing electricity to rural areas that may never see the grid is a great boon to both people’s quality of life and the region’s economy. Yet even places with utility grid power are turning to microgrids to provide more reliable power. Palm Meadows is an 86-acre gated community for the wealthy in Hyderabad, India. With India’s grid being quite unreliable, the 335 homes of Palm Meadows tie into the grid at a dedicated substation and source energy in bulk from the utility. If the system’s advanced application software senses any irregularities in utility power, the system automatically switches to local generation. The local generation is currently running on diesel generators, but the hope is to have it outfitted with solar panels in the future.

Cuba, meanwhile, is 96 percent electrified with grid power. Yet the unreliability of the grid, especially in the face of intensifying hurricanes, convinced Cuba to turn to microgrids. Instead of relying on the eleven large, inefficient, and old thermoelectric plants generating electricity for the entire island, the government installed 1,854 diesel and fuel oil microgrid plants across the country, representing over 3,000 megawatts of decentralized power. This switch virtually eliminated the blackouts that had been plaguing the country for years.

“Markets in developing countries could become the largest microgrid sector,” writes environmental author and senior analyst for Navigant Research Peter Asmus in the Sacramento Bee. If these smaller microgrids become networked with one another it may avert the need for any central transmission grid. Not only will these microgrids bring social and environmental benefits, but according to Asmus, they may be the “the most attractive bottom-of-the-pyramid business model of any kind available today.”

While the telecommunications industry in North America and Europe invested in landlines before moving to mobile phone networks, the mobile phone has effectively leapfrogged the landline throughout the developing world. In the same way, our current centralized, aging electrical system — vulnerable to many external threats — is not the best way forward for many of the lesser-developed communities of the world. As RMI works to transform the U.S. electricity system to one that is clean, secure, and largely distributed, hopefully the developing world can learn a lesson from mobile phones, and get it right the first time.

This article was originally published on RMI and was republished with permission.

First image of woman and child: cdrin / Shutterstock.com

All other images courtesy of Shutterstock