Smart Grid technology can help to address Africa’s chronic power shortage
Africa’s power grids are as notorious as its traditional fixed-line telephone networks for poor performance and reliability and a complete failure to satisfy demand on a national level. This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa, while the relatively affluent North African countries have done slightly better in both areas. However, the idea of Smart Grid technology is only just beginning to be addressed on the continent – less so from the environmental point of view at this stage but driven rather by the need to manage a chronic shortage.
South Africa, the economic powerhouse of the sub-continent, has connected millions of households in underprivileged areas to electricity for the first time following the end of Apartheid but forgot to match this huge new demand on the supply side with new power plants and transmission networks. The result is a power crisis with power rationing and the closure of mines, a key sector of the country’s economy, with direct consequences on GDP growth that the country so desperately needs to lift the majority of the population out of poverty. Consumers can expect a 35% electricity price hike over the next three years, and businesses have been told they should expect only 90% of their energy needs met through 2012, and these estimates may be optimistic.
The country’s power utility, Eskom is planning to invest ZAR385 billion (US$48 billion) into power generation over the next five years and a total of ZAR1.3 trillion through 2025, but it has been told by the Smart Grid Consortium (consisting of Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, IBM and local telecommunications company UniNet) to spend less and start thinking smarter.
Smart Grid technology can help to distribute and use the limited available power as efficiently as possible. South Africa is in a relatively good position with a well developed telecommunications infrastructure, including metropolitan and national fibre backbone networks. Eskom operates its own telecommunications network along major power lines and was planning to invest ZAR1 billion (US$140 million) into it over the four years to 2010.
Angola is an example for trans-sector thinking in Africa. Two decades of civil war up to 2002 have destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, including power and telecommunications. Since then it has been blessed with double-digit GDP growth, fuelled by oil revenues, and a booming telecommunications market. However, only around 10% of households are estimated to be connected to the power grid, and of what little electricity is delivered to customers, a shocking 70% is not being billed because usage cannot be measured accurately. Growth in demand for electricity is estimated at 12% p.a.
An ‘Inter-ministerial Commission for the Coordination of Multi-Sectoral Telecommunications’ was formed to coordinate a US$500 million national fibre rollout by Angola Telecom (AT) with fibre and microwave rollouts by other entities such as the Electricity Ministry (following the power lines), the Transport Ministry (following the railway lines), and the Water Ministry, in a bid to avoid duplication of efforts. Prior to this, a Multi-sector Hub Project had already been initiated under which a satellite-based national backbone network with thousands of nodes would benefit service providers and institutions across various sectors of the economy, including telecoms, energy, health, education, media, transportation, water, fisheries, finance, justice, and defence.
Many African countries are facing similar problems, and it is expected that Smart Grid technology will play an important part in the solution.
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