Electrifying Africa

I want to share with you my vision for Africa pertaining to equitable access to reliable electricity, a vision passionately shaped by my learning journey both at home in Uganda, where I was born and raised, and here in Canada, where I moved from half way across the world to attend the University of British Columbia (UBC).

I want to share my learning story and highlight some insights, suggestions and critiques and help you start to think differently about the challenges and opportunities for achieving access to equitable and reliable electricity in East Africa.

Well, why East Africa? I choose to focus only on East Africa for two main reasons: first, to acknowledge the diversity of issues across the 54 countries on the continent, thus avoiding the common fallacy of assuming that everything is the same everywhere in Africa. The second reason of course is the fact that I have only travelled and studied energy access in this part of the continent, namely Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda.

As a child, I always wondered why the power went off very often, especially while I watched my favourite cartoons on TV. Why? But before I could get any answers, I came to a crossroads with an even more damning realization that it could be worse: that I might have no power at all, nothing! In this reality, there would be no hot water (or water in general), no cold refrigerated beverages, no bright light to study or play at night, and most important for me at the time, no TV to watch cartoons.

Fast forward to last summer, I embarked on a journey to look for that answer that still eluded me. Like any complex issue, I was overwhelmed by the number of different reasons I received from the various stakeholders that I engaged with. It was interesting you know: I have always found that the more I learn about a particular subject of interest, the more I want learn. And I think this thirst for knowledge, new ideas, and critical insights is currently the main fuel driving youth to innovate youth on the continent.

Coming back to the journey, I said: Well then, if there are many answers to the question why, then what is being done to get to the desirable end point (which is more reliable and accessible electricity), and if something is being done, who is doing it? These questions allowed me to unearth the various parts of the energy challenge that I had never imagined, but more importantly, they unearthed an enormous and unique opportunity. This opportunity that I speak of is the ability for solar power to meet critical energy demands for various communities in East Africa.

The topic of solar energy is immensely broad with various contentions about scalability, efficiency, economic sustainability of projects, but let’s focus on Solar PV, which simply refers to the technology that powers your everyday solar panel.

Currently solar PV takes a number of forms in East Africa, all of which are meeting different energy demands. The commonest is Pico solar, mainly used for lighting and cell phone charging in homes and businesses, followed by solar home systems for both rural and urban households, and then large-scale solar systems for micro-grids and utility scale power. All of these applications have one common setback, which is electrical energy storage in batteries. As much as battery technology has improved over the years, it is still the most expensive part of many solar power systems currently used on the continent.

One particular application of solar on the continent that excites me is solar irrigation, because it enables us to get around the trouble of dealing with batteries. In a typical solar power system, one charges batteries and stores electrical energy while the sun is around, and then recovers this energy later by discharging the battery. In this application however, one need only to pump and store water in an elevated structure while the sun is around and then tap it for use in irrigation. This is a particularly important application because agriculture is the economic backbone of East African countries and therefore improving productivity could definitely put them on a path of accelerated growth.

In addition, the modular nature of the solar power resource on the continent now offers young entrepreneurs an opportunity to take ownership of the responsibility to meet crucial energy demands in their communities. More importantly, building a renewable energy infrastructure from the ground up is a unique opportunity for countries on the continent to get ahead in the global transition to renewable energy. Indeed, in my vision for Africa’s next generation, I see African countries playing a significant role in the fight against climate change by harnessing solar powered technologies.

In addition to finding answers to my initial question ‘why,’ I also learned about significant and life changing impacts of having access to reliable electricity across various communities,  impacts that dwarfed my need to watch TV or drink a cold beverage, such as the ability for young people to study at night. It is through this experience that I have been humbled and firmly grounded in my endeavours. I have found fulfilment in seeing opportunities where I initially perceived challenges.

If like me, you believe in the picture that I have painted for the continent’s next generation, I invite you to join the conversation, find your niche, and take action!

Brian Mukeswe is a MasterCard Foundation Scholar pursuing an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and business. He spoke at The Walrus Talks: Africa’s Next Generation, a collaboration with The Walrus Foundation and the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. Other speakers included Ivy Mwai, Senior Program Manager at The MasterCard Foundation, and Sharon Shamuyarira, a MasterCard Foundation Scholar at UBC.