Mobile payments, digital financing and innovative financing options are enabling the rapid deployment of renewable energy in Africa. This is good news for a number of reasons – including public health. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that fuels such as wood, dung, coal and other solid fuels - termed as the “killer in the kitchen” causes 1.5 million deaths annually and two thirds of these deaths takes place in sub-Sahara Africa and South-East Asia.
Africa is rapidly upgrading its digital television infrastructure. This isn’t just about enabling more people to watch their favorite shows – it’s a big move that will help spur economic development through an improved mobile and internet communication infrastructure. As covered previously on Cleanleap, analysis shows that improved internet connectivity in Africa could lead to a $300 billion contribution to GDP by 2025.
The Rural Electrification Authority in Kenya has provided electricity to around 250 off-grid public schools from November 2014 to date, through solar photovoltaic systems. One school in Narok County – Ngaambani Primary, has not had electricity connectivity for the last 30 years. Through this initiative, the school’s performance has increased with more students able to study in the evenings after class hours and early mornings before regular class hours.
Mobilizing of support from private entities into renewable energy generation in Africa has always been a challenge as the investors shy away from spending on technologies and projects that guarantee uncertain returns. This has had a big impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are related to power/energy generation. The Lake Turkana Wind Power farm is one example of how this is changing.
A team of researchers, led by Samuel K. Sia, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, has introduced a new cheap mobile microfluidic chip that can complete an immediate diagnosis of three simultaneous infectious diseases in only 15 minutes! From a single finger prick, the dongle can perform a tri-plexed immunoassay not currently existing in a single test format, the diagnosis includes: HIV antibodies, treponemal-specific antibodies for syphilis, and nontreponemal antibodiesfor an active syphilis infection.
West Africa's largest healthcare project has been launched in Accra, Ghana. The Eco Medical Village is set to become a 1,100-bed sub-regional project, providing specialized medical centers across 40 acres. Offering African's an alternative to traveling to India, Europe or the US for their healthcare needs, it also keeps this valuable investment within West Africa.
The United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with Bloomberg New Energy Finance released their annual Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2018. The report focuses on investment in renewable power and fuels - wind, solar, biomass and waste, biofuels, geothermal and marine projects, and small hydro-electric dams. The rise of solar power has dominated renewable energy investment in 2017, more than that new coal, gas and nuclear plants put together.
One of the most exciting ventures a country and its cities can undergo is that of modernizing and redeveloping its buildings. The progress made is almost always positive, and literally can give cities a new face. Major infrastructure projects in Vietnam are not so slowly transforming the city for the better, upgrading various aspects ranging from transportation to water treatment and infrastructure.
In Northern Upper East Ghana, a water conservation technology is enabling about 400 smallholder farmers from 10 communities to farm in dry seasons. As a result they are now getting at least two crop seasons annually as opposed to one, after implementing the PAVE irrigation Technology which harvests flood and rain water, and stores it in underground aquifers where it lasts for up to 180 days.
In Rwanda, a ‘Pico-hydro’ refers to a power system with a capacity less than 50kW. Their advantage over other power systems is their cost-effectiveness and simplicity, and come in different designs, planning and installation processes. It is an economical source of power that has proven useful in delivering clean energy to some of the world’s poorest and most remote places.
Whether they are consumed as grains or flour they are always products in high demand in Africa - these being cereals such maize, sorghum, millet and wheat. One of the issues with these widely consumed crops is when people want to grind them and consume them as flour, with most remote areas lacking access to electricity and therefore use expensive fossil fuel to run milling machines.
Better housing is one of the key indicators of the economic development, but most developing countries still have a challenge to secure clean homes for their habitants. Dirt floors are often responsible up to 80 percent of diseases. In most cases, parasites live in soil in form of feces and bacteria that can be contagious by either absorption or a simple contact. EarthEnable has introduced a solution to all those problems.
The Croton tree, which is commonly known as Mukinduri in Eastern and Central part of Kenya, is now a good known source of biofuels and that is being practiced. It grows in a challenging environment and unlike jatropha and palm, it won't bring food and fuel competition. It has no chemical additives and burns cleaner than traditional diesel fuel, with no sulfuric content. It can save our environment from carbon emissions and help in better land usage.
Many companies use traditional methods to measure the impact of solar power investments such as quoting the many dollars invested, number of people using their kits and areas covered by their product, which are inadequate tools for measuring social impact for solar power investments if we have to get it right. Traditional approaches of gathering data are not only expensive, take time to give results and complicated to use, but are also not helpful in terms of boosting solar power funding. The lean data approach proposed by Acumen could, not only bridge solar power funding gaps in developing worlds, but will also help companies to understand emerging markets.
Research undertaken by Greentech Media (GTM) predicts that over the next five years, the global solar market will demonstrate a cumulative average growth rate of around 8%, with emerging economies including India and Latin America leading the progress.