DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Ubuntu Energy

Project disclaimer

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Description

This project aims to build community resilience in sub-Saharan Africa using Energy Ubuntu as a vehicle. It is akin to the 'Uber of Energy', democratising power sharing, transforming wasted energy into community power, and empowering communities to drive their development through sustainable means. It seeks to transform waste energy to community power for productive use. It addresses the developmental challenges of lack of modern and clean energy access, energy poverty and the harmful effects of global warming by improving access to clean and reliable electricity and deriving new business and economic change models, and building capabilities and contributing to SDGs 1,3,4,5,7,8,9,11,12,13. Nigeria's electricity sector faces a problem. Its Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are sub-optimally utilized and substantially wasteful, while it has deficient electricity access of ~60%. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are up to 400% oversized or lack the mechanism required to utilize their generation potential. Some PV systems are up to 80% used during the weekdays but are 20% utilized on weekends. Rural communities only utilize about 5% of the potential PV energy. Yet, 85 million Nigerians have no electricity access, costing Nigeria $26 billion annually for self-generation using carbon-intensive generators, causing excessive carbon emissions and energy waste because excess generation cannot be fed into the grid. To address this challenge, Energy Ubuntu delivers a design and pilot of a smart grid (SG) peer-to-peer (P2P) energy-sharing framework that enables the distribution of excess generation potential to energy consumers to enhance PV capacity utilization and minimize energy waste while providing clean and affordable electricity. It improves PV usage by incentivizing individuals or businesses to sell energy to potential consumers in a peer-to-peer system. The consumers will be SMEs and homes near solar PV systems in rural and urban communities. The project will be implemented over two years with critical deliverables of smart grid design, energy trading software, energy data mining and machine learning models for energy supply, deployment of smart circuitry in 200 sites, energy trade, and the evolution of new business models and community resilience initiatives. It will be implemented by four teams, Greenage Technologies (Technical lead), Nithio (Technical partner), Oxford EPG (research lead), and DRE Partners Ltd (formerly Kula Foods) (Admin Lead). Some co-benefits can be derived from Energy Ubuntu, including sustainable community development and carbon emission reduction leading to improved standards of living while significantly decreasing CO2 emissions.

Objectives

This project aims to build community resilience in sub-Saharan Africa using Energy Ubuntu as a vehicle. It is akin to the 'Uber of Energy', democratising power sharing, transforming wasted energy into community power, and empowering communities to drive their development through sustainable means. It seeks to transform waste energy to community power for productive use. It addresses the developmental challenges of lack of modern and clean energy access, energy poverty and the harmful effects of global warming by improving access to clean and reliable electricity and deriving new business and economic change models, and building capabilities and contributing to SDGs 1,3,4,5,7,8,9,11,12,13. Nigeria's electricity sector faces a problem. Its Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are sub-optimally utilized and substantially wasteful, while it has deficient electricity access of ~60%. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are up to 400% oversized or lack the mechanism required to utilize their generation potential. Some PV systems are up to 80% used during the weekdays but are 20% utilized on weekends. Rural communities only utilize about 5% of the potential PV energy. Yet, 85 million Nigerians have no electricity access, costing Nigeria $26 billion annually for self-generation using carbon-intensive generators, causing excessive carbon emissions and energy waste because excess generation cannot be fed into the grid. To address this challenge, Energy Ubuntu delivers a design and pilot of a smart grid (SG) peer-to-peer (P2P) energy-sharing framework that enables the distribution of excess generation potential to energy consumers to enhance PV capacity utilization and minimize energy waste while providing clean and affordable electricity. It improves PV usage by incentivizing individuals or businesses to sell energy to potential consumers in a peer-to-peer system. The consumers will be SMEs and homes near solar PV systems in rural and urban communities. The project will be implemented over two years with critical deliverables of smart grid design, energy trading software, energy data mining and machine learning models for energy supply, deployment of smart circuitry in 200 sites, energy trade, and the evolution of new business models and community resilience initiatives. It will be implemented by four teams, Greenage Technologies (Technical lead), Nithio (Technical partner), Oxford EPG (research lead), and DRE Partners Ltd (formerly Kula Foods) (Admin Lead). Some co-benefits can be derived from Energy Ubuntu, including sustainable community development and carbon emission reduction leading to improved standards of living while significantly decreasing CO2 emissions.

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Location

The country, countries or regions that benefit from this Programme.

Nigeria

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