Productive Use of Energy in African Micro-Grids: Technical and Business Considerations
This report, published in support of the Power Africa: Beyond the Grid Program, explores the business model and technical challenges related to the productive use of energy in smaller micro-grids. In addition to examing the business models used by developers, this report also provides best practices for promoting the productive use of energy.
This report is one in a series of reports that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Energy 4 Impact (E4I) are developing to support the Power Africa: Beyond the Grid Program. It also serves as a companion document to the Quality Assurance Framework for Mini-Grids (BaringGould et al. 2016). Productive Use of Energy in African Micro-Grids serves as a resource for entrepreneurs and developers to better understand the challenges related to the productive use of energy in smaller micro-grids. Special attention is paid to small industrial commercial loads small-scale agricultural processing.