Zimbabwe micro-grids

Harare, Zimbabwe

From CleanTechnica

For the last couple of decades, Zimbabweans have been subjected to electricity rationing due to several reasons, such as frequent droughts affecting hydropower generation and regular breakdowns at the country’s aging coal power plants. This means most businesses operating in the commercial and industrial sector as well as in the mining and agricultural sectors generally have diesel back-up generators (DGs).

As the price of solar panels dropped significantly over the last decade, more firms in these sectors started to install solar PV onsite to complement the grid. Most of these installations are simple grid-tied solutions, meaning that they would automatically switch off when there is a grid power outage. To allow the safe operation of onsite solar in island mode during a power cut, some firms have started integrating their PV plants with their existing or new diesel back-up generators. In this mode, the PV works with the DGs and helps reduce the diesel usage.

Technological advancements in the battery storage sector and the subsequent price reductions have now made the business case for incorporating battery storage more appealing. We are starting to see some firms adopting battery storage. Going forward, this means that we will start to see more of these grid connected microgrids that have solar PV, battery storage, and diesel back-up generators. To unlock the full potential of these microgrids, looking at them independently behind the meter initially, and then in the next phase, as aggregated distributed energy resources acting as virtual power plants, smart energy management systems backed by AI powered forecasts, monitoring, analytics and control, will help underpin the value proposition of these grid-edge solutions.

NeedEnergy, an energy-tech startup that leverages data, innovation, and modern technology relevant to the provision of sustainable and clean energy solutions, wants to lead the drive to get businesses in Zimbabwe to adopt technologies and platforms that will enable Zimbabwe to get closer to the grid edge.

After successfully completing a number of trials with several firms in Zimbabwe over the past 2 years, NeedEnergy, together with Inno-Tech, a local solar engineering, construction, and procurement company (EPC) led by Founder Richard Werrett, have this week launched their first commercial project. They have deployed a 30 kW PV plant coupled with 60 kWh LFP battery storage [given solar capacity factors, that's about 4 hours of storage]in a grid-tied hybrid microgrid operating at the edge of the grid in a first for Zimbabwe. A 60 KVA diesel generator is also part of the microgrid. The installation is at a new small shopping center in the upmarket Borrowdale area, in Harare.

The solar microgrid is currently meeting 100% of the load demand and there are intentions to further scale the microgrid to a 60 kW/120 kWh system as more tenants take up shop space at the new small shopping center. An English-style pub is also due to open at the shopping center soon. The owner of the shopping center said he wanted to incorporate solar, battery storage, and cutting edge energy management systems from the get-go as an example for other developers to follow. He has even installed high temperature heat pumps for several tenants, including the hair salon that uses a lot of hot water.

Zimbabwe is one of the few places in the region that allows and promotes net metering. The new shopping center is looking to join in on the net metering and unlock more value from the microgrid. They have applied for this and are in the queue. With several sites in the area looking to install similar microgrids as well as advanced microgrid management systems, NeedEnergy understands that it may as well be the first to take advantage of this and is ready to deploy the first virtual power plant in Zimbabwe in this neighborhood. It will be one of the few VPPs in the region as it brings these capabilities to the microgrids through its platform.

Load shedding is happening throughout Southern Africa, but is also a serious problem in other countries such as Nigeria and Pakistan.   Allowing private businesses and farms to use net metering to add their surplus electricity to the grid is an innovative way to reduce blackouts.  Diesel-powered backup is normally much more expensive than grid electricity, and enterprises only use it as a last resort.  They won't be feeding diesel-generated power into the grid. But they will feed surplus electricity from solar panels into the grid.  Each micro-grid will produce more electricity than it needs, and the surplus will be available for others.   Each set of rooftop solar panels produces only relatively small quantities of electricity, but thousands add up:  in South Australia, for example, rooftop solar provides nearly 20% of total electricity demand.