The global energy sector is faced with the dual challenge of meeting growing energy demand and simultaneously lowering carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the energy system, says MIT Energy Initiative director Robert Armstrong.

Speaking at the twenty-first Power and Electricity World Africa conference, in Johannesburg, he said that, in order to increase energy availability on the continent, the energy sector would need to shift its focus away from fossil fuel resources or deal with the CO₂ emissions from these sources.

He conceded that the impact of climate change was real and warned that CO_{2 and other greenhouse-gas emissions needed to be reduced in order to avoid “unimaginable consequences to society”.}

“Because most of the global electricity is produced through large central generation facilities . . . electrification is the place to go, initially, to deal with CO₂ emissions.”

He pointed out that, although the increasing use of distributive energy resources – such as solar and wind – could provide carbon-free electricity, these were, at the same time, intermittent.

“We need to learn how to operate generation in this new world of intermittent renewable-energy sources. Discovering how best to exploit this opportunity is one of the challenges for grid operatives,” Armstrong said.

He explained that digitalisation had been a major enabler that allowed consumers to not only participate in the energy markets but also access the data on their energy use.

With digital capability, there was an opportunity to build different kinds of grids. Instead of connecting everybody to the grid, there was an opportunity for consumers to make use of minigrids or offgrid solutions.

Armstrong noted that the MIT Energy Initiative had piloted the use of satellite data to identify loads in Africa.

“With those loads and the solar resources in the area, we are able to map out a possible grid for the region and use a variety of grid configurations based on a low, medium or high load scenario in order to construct cost estimates for building the microgrid,” he explained.

He noted that this was based on the layout, the cost of solar, its storage and, if allowed, diesel generation as backup.

However, he warned that the cost of energy systems rose as the reliability and demand on the system increased.