In sub-Saharan Africa, electricity isn’t always readily available and many people across the region are forced to live almost completely without electricity. Electricity is essential to the way we live our lives in the modern world, yet, according to oxfamamerica, across sub-Saharan Africa, “approximately 630 million people live without reliable access to electricity, and 790 million people are forced to rely on solid biomass to cook their food and heat their homes” [1]. Sub-Saharan Africa is clearly missing out on what the rest of the world takes for granted as everyone in developed countries has wall sockets in their homes that charge electronics to full power at any time. As a result of their deficits in electricity, sub-Saharan Africans have less access to technology, unreliable lighting, and are forced to use more primitive methods to heat their food. Therefore, electricity generation is an integral part of advancing African society into the modern era and reducing the impoverished state of many sub-Saharan African countries. In order to produce adequate electricity for sub-Saharan Africa, an electricity generation technique must be developed that is clean, cheap, and requires minimal installation for its ease of use in society.
Electricity is highly valued in American society; however, many sub-Saharan Africans don’t necessarily see the benefits of electricity because they are unaware of the effect it can have on their lives. The Rockefeller Foundation highlights some of these benefits in an article titled “Access to Electricity is Critical to Africa’s Growth.” One part of the article states “Africa relies heavily on wood or other biomass for cooking and heating, a cause of outdoor and indoor air pollution, wreaking havoc on our health and the environment.” Therefore, using electricity for cooking and heating would improve the health of the average African household - a benefit that many Africans might not realize. Access to electricity would also likely boost the sub-Saharan African economy due to making Africans more productive. According to the article “Electricity can increase household per capita income by 39 percent. Businesses operate at higher levels of productivity, farmers can run cleaner irrigation systems and processing machines that improve their yields and thus, their income” [2]. Therefore, electricity not only improves the ease of life in Africa, it boosts the economy and improves productivity in all sectors of life. For example, think about how much more work could get done if Africans could rely on electrical lighting to do work at night. As mentioned earlier, Africans don’t necessarily understand that electricity can improve a lot of the problems that they currently have in their society. According to a CNN article, “only 13 percent of Africans listed electricity supply as the biggest issues facing the country; unemployment, health and education were the top three answers” [3]. This is particularly revealing since electricity will help the sub-Saharan African economy through reducing unemployment, reducing reliance on bio-materials as fuels which will improve health by reducing the amount of smoke in houses from burned fuel, and through aiding education with increased access to electronic technology. Therefore, most sub-Saharan Africans don’t understand the positive impact that reliable electricity can have on their society.
According to Ron Barnes, the global outreach pastor at Flatirons Church who has been to numerous countries in Africa on mission trips, rural sections of Africa are especially deficient in energy since they rely on agriculture for their livelihoods and often live far outside of the city grid where electricity can be found. While Americans use electricity for everything from cooking to computers, Africans often limit their use of electricity to what they deem essential. To many Africans, lighting their homes and using cell phones are the most essential uses of electricity. On one of Ron Barnes’s mission trips to Africa, he noticed that there are businesses where people will pay to have their phone batteries charged through solar panels - a fact that clearly illustrates the potential for increased electricity production in Africa [4]. Since electricity is already being produced using alternative methods to charge batteries for phones, then surely a larger scale solution could be developed that uses the same concepts as the solar panel charging business.
According to Mark Lesak, a graduate student at Colorado School of Mines in the robotics lab, solar panels could be an efficient solution for energy deficiencies in sub-Saharan Africa; although, it is ideal to set the solar panels up in a way that allows for maximum sun absorption and requires minimal installation. In addition, he advises that if robotics are to be used, it is better to have the least amount of machinery operating as possible since components are likely to break at some point and it will be difficult to find a knowledgeable specialist in the region to fix the generator. Furthermore, he advises that simplicity is essential to developing an effective solution for sub-Saharan Africa as the more complex the solution, the more factors there are to consider when implementing it into the sub-Saharan African environment [7].
While providing an electricity generation solution for sub-Saharan Africa, one must consider how each region differs in their electricity needs and how electricity generation will be handled by the African society. First, one must understand where the most energy deficient places in Africa are located. According to ISI Consultants, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Kenya are the most energy deficient places in sub-Saharan Africa with over 35 million people living without access to electricity in each country [5]. When considering a solution one must understand these countries are often very poor and can’t afford to install a massive electrical infrastructure with all towns connected to a large electrical grid. Therefore, an electricity generation solution must be created with minimal installation required and relative ease of use for the sub-Saharan African people. Next, one must understand that the political climate of each African country has a strong influence on how effectively an electricity generation technique will be used. According to brookings.edu, “Africa has been getting an average of about $40 billion in foreign aid every year, a sum higher than the GDP of 41 of the region’s 48 economies. But aid does not seem to have been a catalyst for change in the subcontinent.” Part of the reason for the lack of change is due to the failure of reforming institutions in Africa that have done a poor job in taking advantage of the funds coming into their country [6]. Therefore, a solution needs to be developed that doesn’t require a large amount of coordination on the part of the sub-Saharan African people, since too much government involvement could jeopardize the efficiency of the solution.
To sum everything up, sub-Saharan Africa is largely deficient in electricity compared to the rest of the modern world which means that the people living there have less opportunities and a much more basic lifestyle centered around providing necessities for themselves rather than pursuing their passions - a fact that defines the stark difference between developed nations and African nations. While many sub-Saharan Africans have been surviving without electricity, that doesn’t mean that electricity isn’t of any value to their society - electricity can improve communications, the sub-Saharan economy, education, health, productivity, and much more. Energy is the starting place for all parts of life; therefore, increasing the amount of electricity in sub-Saharan Africa will surely increase the amount of opportunities there. Since it is clear electricity will benefit sub-Saharan Africa, the question is how to provide that electricity.
Solar panels are a really fascinating form of technology that attempt to replicate the process that plants have become the masters of: harnessing energy from the sun, a constant supply of energy that is free to use and fuels all life on Earth. While ideal, harnessing energy from the sun isn’t exactly easy as the best solar panels we have today convert solar energy into electricity with around 44.5 percent efficiency and most current solar panels operate at an even lower maximum efficiency of 25 percent in converting sunlight into electricity [8]. Even though solar panels are more costly than using fossil fuels in large scale production, they are a better solution to sub-Saharan Africa’s energy problem because they absorb free energy from the sun which keeps the costs at minimal amounts for the electricity generation, they don’t require workers to function which again keeps costs at minimal amounts, they are a cleaner form of energy which means that there won’t be any pollution produced from their use, and the rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa are often sun rich environments where sunny days are more common than cloudy days; thus, solar panels have an optimal environment to work in. While most of sub-Saharan Africa may be very sunny, it would make sense to implement a mechanical aspect to the solar panels where they can change their position depending on the time of day in order to continually face the sun for maximum energy absorption.
As mentioned with Ron Barnes earlier, the two main needs of electricity in Africa are lighting and charging of electronic devices like phones. Therefore, the electricity needed doesn’t necessarily need to be in large continuous amounts, so rechargeable batteries could serve as a viable solution to supply enough electricity to power a household lamp or keep a phone charges for a few hours. Since solar panels seem to be the best current electricity generation solution for sub-Saharan Africa, it would make sense to use solar power to charge batteries that could be used by the public for various functions that require only a few hours worth of electricity usage. All together, a solar charging station should have a mechanical apparatus that ensures solar panels constantly face the sun, a design completely independent of external wiring, and the capability to charge batteries at the same time while running in order to create an ideal solution for the energy problem in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mark Lesak is a graduate student at Colorado School of Mines working in the robotics lab.