Research & Development of Equality & Power
This blog post touches on something important – automation’s role in supply, demand, and essentially, leveling out the playing field. Electricity distribution to homes and communities in Africa is of critical importance, as it is in other emerging markets. Optimization, efficiency, safety and reliability are key aspirations.
Nigeria, with a population of 166 million, has the same electricity capacity as Manchester and Liverpool which have a combined population of just 2 million. This illustrates the critical nature of distribution in certain parts of the world, to ensure productivity and diminish waste.
Load sharing is a technique where planned shutdowns are coded into electricity grid systems, ensuring industries receive power at peak times. In tandem with this, residential areas are also afforded greater planning and consistency of power.
For 2M, key considerations in an R&D project of this scale involve:
Inclusion – how best to ensure equality of supply throughout the population?
Community – how best to avoid overcompensating in favour of industries?
An intuitive system is better able to avoid loss of power to the general public unnecessarily.
Early Warning – how best to provide up to a weeks notice of precise and planned power cuts?
Currently, little or no notice is common. Our aim is to enhance individual autonomy, whilst also enabling the protection of equipment and appliances from unexpected power surges.
It’s surreal to think that a city like Manchester has vastly greater energy capabilities than Ghana’s capital Accra – imagine what the impact on infrastructure, education, health, and other vital services would be?
Power plant in Ghana –
Across Africa investors joke about living in a “bring-your-own-infrastructure” continent, in which firms must provide independent generators, water purification and even sewage treatment when building a factory or hotel. Of these the costliest is often power. Nigeria, which has a population three times larger than South Africa’s, generates just a tenth as much electricity.
That’s a really interesting point Ron. We wonder how more reliable and affordable public power provision will enable home-grown developments? Hopefully rendering much more native growth attainable.