In June 2020, residents of the remote village of Mthembanji in Malawi’s Dedza district welcomed the arrival of a 20-foot shipping container. It held the components of a 12-kilowatt solar-powered microgrid – to provide 60 homes and small businesses with a supply of electricity for the first time. Following close consultation with community members, its arrival sparked a host of training and capacity building initiatives, opportunities for local income generation and improvement of life at household level.

The National Grid in Malawi only reaches 12% of the population. The problem is worse in rural areas – of the 85% living in these areas, only about 3% have access to electricity. In total, there are nearly 16 million people in Malawi without access to electricity.

Why does this matter? An absence of electricity is a hindrance to social and economic development. For example, darkness or poor quality indoor lighting in the evenings and at night make many household tasks harder and more time-consuming, preventing children from doing homework after dark and causing security issues in the community. Energy poverty also restricts possibilities for business growth and diversification, stifling economic development. Plus, an absence of electricity in schools and health facilities compromises the quality of healthcare, student outcomes and staff retention.

Although there are many renewable energy access initiatives across Malawi, they mainly focus on personal or household-level solar systems, or larger-scale mini-grids – the former having limited reach and impact, and the latter being costly and complex.

With funding from Scottish Government’s Malawi Development Programme, United Purpose and the University of Strathclyde are working together to develop a financially and environmentally sustainable alternative to village scale electricity access – through installing and managing the microgrid in Mthembanji. It is a comparatively low-cost, simple and rapidly deployable solution to energy poverty in rural Malawi.

As Malawi’s first smart-metred, solar-powered microgrid, it is unique in its ability to be monitored remotely from anywhere in the world, allowing researchers at the University of Strathclyde to gather data on energy use. This is vital for informing energy policy and business models for future microgrids. The partnership approach has included significant community engagement to ensure the service is affordable and designed for customer needs, as well as adhering to Malawi’s electricity supply regulatory requirements.

Valuable data is also being gathered on social impact, with initial findings showing positive changes to community livelihoods. These include increased security in the village, children being able to study at home in the evenings and nights, and new businesses being set up (there are currently 11 businesses connected to the microgrid). The school, which has also been connected, has introduced iPads in partnership with the Turing Trust.

-Written by Elizabeth Banda, Project Manager of the EASE project at UP Malawi

Context:

The Rural Energy Access through Social Enterprise and Decentralisation (EASE) project is funded by the Scottish Government’s Malawi Development Programme, and builds on the longstanding partnership between United Purpose and the University of Strathclyde. The project focuses on marginalised rural communities in Dedza and Balaka Districts. It addresses energy challenges via a community-centred approach to deploy holistic, sustainable solutions to the complex energy challenges experienced in these communities, specifically through deploying microgrids, energy hubs, and District Energy Officers. Through this project, UP is supporting the Government of Malawi to achieve their 2030 target of sustainable energy for all.