Off-Grid Solar Microgrids: Reaching Communities that Utilities Haven’t
An estimated 620 million of the more than 2 billion people around the world who lack access to reliable sources of electricity live in sub-Saharan Africa, many of them eking out an existence from smallholder farms. Multilateral development agencies, governments and utilities have been considering and attempting to roll out public grid infrastructure for them for decades with little success.
Steama.co is a finalist in the 2016 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge.
James Gadsby Peet, Director of Digital with our long-standing friends William Joseph, has written a brilliant account of the 2016 Ashden International Conference which focused on how to move up the energy ladder in an off-grid world. Here, he takes us through some key themes of the day.
Recognising their outstanding role in bringing smart and energy efficient technologies to rural areas, the two companies won awards, along with nine other pioneering sustainable energy organisations, at a prestigious ceremony in London on 11 June 2015.
The International Gold Award and Ashden Award for Business Innovation went to SteamaCo, a Nairobi-based company that has developed a system to manage the monitoring, control and payments of mini grids remotely, overcoming one of the key barriers to making micro-grids commercially feasible and sustainable.
Steama.co is the market leader in technology for managing off-grid renewable energy networks in emerging markets, and it is helping utilities and customers communicate and link up in rural Africa. The continent is home to millions of people who go without electricity every day, and Steama.co is helping to change that with more distributed energy generation and data analytics.
Kenya-based business SteamaCo is harnessing the power of mobile to bring affordable electricity access to rural, off-grid communities. SteamaCo’s smart technology allows solar micro-grid owners to monitor their performance remotely and capture consumer payments via mobile money platforms, thereby overcoming the traditional challenges of keeping grids working reliably and profitably.
SteamaCo is unlocking one of the key barriers to making micro-grids investable
International Gold Award and Ashden Award for Business Innovation, supported by Citi
Lake Victoria’s fishing villages and other rural communities in Kenya are benefiting from clean light and power for the first time, thanks to renewable energy micro-grids. Using the natural energy of the sun, they work like mini power stations for each village, supplying enough energy to run small businesses, as well as power TVs, radios and bright lights in the home.
