The development of decentralised microgrids that run on renewables should be encouraged and enabled throughout Africa to allow for the adoption of electric vehicles (EV) in remote areas, which would contribute significantly towards resolving mobility challenges across the continent.

The proposed solution was supported by several panelists during an African Energy Indaba webinar dealing with energy for transport in Africa on March 2.

“Africa has a huge deficit in energy generation and a transport and mobility crisis. If we look at both urban and rural Africa, the cost and the time that most people spend on access and transport is ridiculous,” said renewable energy and transport company Mobility for Africa founder and director Shantha Bloemen.

She commented that there was “no excuse” anymore not to electrify the continent given that the cost of renewable energy had decreased significantly in recent years.

Bloemen noted that advancements in battery technology, the digital revolution underpinning renewable technologies, as well as access to financing would all serve to derisk rural populations to make the rollout of electrified transportation viable.

She noted that, with 70% of the continent comprised of rural areas, it would be unhelpful to only focus on urban areas when it came to providing adequate electrified transport infrastructure.

“I think we should be much more ambitious than that,” she said.

Energy company Hamster Energy CEO Idris Rufai noted that Africa lacked the electricity infrastructure and capacity to support electric mobility solutions – especially in rural areas – but that the solution lay in decentralising energy supply away from State-owned grids and allowing the private sector to enter the fray, building renewable energy-based microgrids to service remote areas.

He said this would allow for healthy competition that would lead to better service and lower prices. This would, however, require policy makers to enable large amounts of small-scale investment into the establishment of microgrids across the continent.

This could also deter corruption and mismanagement of large-scale investments into massive power infrastructure projects, such as that which occurred during the building of South African State-owned utility Eskom’s Medupi and Kusile power plants.

Conversely, energy consulting firm THEnergy CEO Dr Thomas Hillig said a full-system approach, as opposed to a decentralised microgrid approach, would be required for Africa’s electrified transport system to become fully competitive.

He argued that EVs would need to have access to charging facilities outside of the microgrid areas, which would require centralised and interconnected networks.

The general consensus of the panelists, however, was that the EV revolution would be beneficial to Africa because it would force increased electrification across the continent. If this were to be achieved through the rollout of microgrid-based renewable energy infrastructure, the cost of electricity would also decrease significantly while also contributing to the decarbonisation of Africa’s energy and transport sectors.

EV adoption campaign Electric Drive Africa founder Dr Remmeredzai Kuhudzai concluded that the electrification of Africa’s transport industry would democratise transport and make it more inclusive for all.