A CONSORTIUM of four foreign firms and one local firm will introduce a new electrification model designed for geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAS).
Led by Manchester-based software solutions provider, Technovative Solutions, the Implementation of Photovoltaics Through A Minigrid Expansion Model for Rural African and Asian Communities (IMPHORAA) consortium includes Nanoé, a French Malagasy social venture implementing the project in Madagascar; world-leading research and technology organization TWI; Brunel University London; and Quantum Leap Marketing (QLM), a power procurement and service company designated to deploy IMPHORAA in the Philippines.
They collaborated on hardware, software and business model innovations to make rural electrification viable in GIDAS.
Funded by the British government, the IMPHORAA project has been field-tested in Madagascar and is about to begin in San Antonio, Zambales.
“I think the IMPHORAA system is a good solution especially in the Philippines because we still have many islands without electricity, just like Port Silanguin. With the IMPHORAA system, the local population will have access to electricity and water pumps; pressurized systems and filtration can then be built,” said John Defensor, representative of QLM.
The partners of the IMPHORAA project are set to formally present the solar nanogrid technology, which is touted as a highly innovative electrification model.
It will be introduced in Port Silanguin, 33 kilometers away from mainland Zambales. It is an isolated island with no road network, no electricity, no potable water system.
“The main advantage of this approach when compared to building from the start a microgrid for an entire village is that investments can be done progressively. We believe this is a game changer in microgrid or rural electrification economics because the main obstacle to the large-scale deployment of microgrids is the high upfront cost,” said Nicolas Saincy, founder and CEO of Nanoé.
The immediate goal, said Saincy, is to provide access to unenergized communities using a combination of photovoltaic panels, nanogrid control, cooling storage and water pumping. Over the long term, the project will not only foster sustainability, but a regenerative ecosystem where local entrepreneurs take charge of marketing, building, operating and maintaining the systems within designated franchise areas.
“The main advantage of this electrification model is that the technology is quite simple and it’s quite cheap so it puts the rural electrification activity at the financial and technical reach of local entrepreneurs that can be informal and do not need to have a PhD or engineering degrees to start this kind of activity,” Saincy added.
