Empowering Low-Income Communities with Sustainable Decentralized Renewable Energy-Based Mini-Grids

Kofi Nyarko (), Jonathan Whale () and Tania Urmee
Additional contact information
Kofi Nyarko: Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Koforidua Technical University, Koforidua P.O. Box KF 981, Ghana
Jonathan Whale: Discipline of Engineering and Energy, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia
Tania Urmee: Discipline of Engineering and Energy, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 23, 1-31

Abstract: With less than seven years before the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals deadline, the race is on to achieve universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services in low-income communities in developing countries. These communities are mostly distant from central grids and economically suitable for off-grid mini-grid systems. Data suggest that these mini-grids are not sustained and often fail after a few years of operation. The authors investigated the challenges of an existing mini-grid system in Ghana and proposed measures to overcome them. Field surveys with expert stakeholders and users of the system were conducted to examine the challenges. The results showed that 98% of the residents use power for domestic purposes. The inability to pay for the power consumed was the highest-ranked challenge the users faced followed by power quality issues. From the expert stakeholders’ perspectives, economic challenges were the most significant barriers with a mean score range of 3.92 to 4.73 on a 1–5 Likert scale, followed by political challenges. The researchers propose that implementers must optimize non-hardware costs and promote local component manufacturing to address these economic challenges. In addition, we suggest that the government review the government-driven policy and involve the private sector.

Keywords: mini-grid; sustainable energy; renewable energy; low-income communities; developing country; PESTLE analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/23/7741/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/23/7741/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:23:p:7741-:d:1286597

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().