Community Rural Electrification and Development

Abstract

The Community Rural Electrification and Development (CRED) project is one of three initiatives from the University of Strathclyde’s Malawi Millennium Project that have received support from the Scottish Government’s International Development Fund. The project arose from a growing interest within the University’s Electrical Engineering Department on sustainable solar electricity deployments in the developing world and an ambition to address more of the wider sustainability challenges of solar electricity as well as the technical. The well established links between the University of Strathclyde (UoS) and the University of Malawi Blantyre Polytechnic provided the opportunity to undertake a project addressing the sustainability issues that undermine renewable energy solutions in Malawi. A partnership consisting of staff from the University of Strathclyde, Blantyre Polytechnic and the Government of Malawi Department of Energy was subsequently formed and the Scottish Government funding granted at the end of October 2008 with the CRED project officially commencing November 2008. The key principles of the CRED project are to improve the sustainability of rural PV deployments through deployment models focussing on community engagement and empowerment, local responsibility and income generation. Village energy committees backed up by an appropriate support chain of a local field coordinator, local suppliers and local government and academic partners are the foundation of the project. Two high level project objectives were identified: i) to increase the opportunities for social and economic development through increased access to reliable, affordable electrical energy in rural communities. 2) to develop and increase the capacity of key stakeholders to advance GoM off grid rural electrification programme.