NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

JOHANNESBURG – A combination of renewable energy sources off the national grids could be a solution to supplying electricity to rural areas across Africa, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed on Monday.

An estimated 643 million people are living without electricity on the continent, with 80 percent of those living in rural areas, and many of them could buy electricity locally and pay using mobile money transfers, PwC said in its report.

With year-round sunshine and thousands of miles of windswept coasts, investors are warming to the renewable energy potential.

“It is clear that grid extensions can’t be seen as the sole, or even the primary, answer to provision of the electricity for all,” the report presented at a conference in Johannesburg said.

Power & Utility Specialist for PwC Africa, Angeli Hoekstra said people could use their cellular phones to pay for power.

“We need to get out of the top down mindset that everything needs to happen through grid-extensions,” said Hoekstra.