Smart Energy Solutions for Africa (SESA) is a European Union (EU)-funded project under Horizon 2020 (now Horizon EU) aiming to mitigate climate change and improve access to sustainable energy under affordable, reliable conditions. The uYilo eMobility Programme is one of several local living labs across the 30 member consortium within Europe and Africa participating in SESA.
uYilo will participate and deliver on the following within the SESA project:
- Global trainings, Community of practice, e-Learning
- Regional trainings and Capacity building
- Technical and Business partnerships, Models and Implementation plans
- Country demonstration site – South Africa
SESA is a collaborative project between the EU and Africa to provide easily-replicated energy access technologies and business models to generate local opportunities for economic development and social cohesion in Africa.
Africa is the fasted growing continent on the planet, measured both in GDP as in population, which historically is accompanied with a growth in energy consumption. With an eye on the Paris Agreement and COP26 it is clear the energy should be Low or even Zero Emission. However, it is important this does not stifle the economic growth allowing millions to climb out of poverty. With this in mind the EU funded the SESA project that aims at mitigating climate change while improving access to sustainable energy under affordable, reliable conditions.
The project goal is to support a diversity of affordable solutions assisting in the provision of access to reliable, efficient, and sustainable energy services, creating fresh business opportunities and developing concepts to directly contribute to low-carbon development.
The combined solutions from the various living labs include decentralised renewables (solar photovoltaics), innovative energy storage systems (including the use of second-life EV batteries), smart micro-grids, waste-to-energy systems (biomass to biogas), climate-proofing, resilience and adaptation, and rural internet access.
The living lab demonstration actions will be tested in Kenya, with various aspects of the tested innovations validated in Ghana, South Africa, Malawi, and Morocco. Each technology demonstrated in the living lab will be accompanied by information and training packages to support the implementation, scale up and replication in other African countries.
The learnings from the ground activities of the living labs as well as the tools and guidelines from the partners will be shared in SESA’s toolbox – an open access online capacity building tool – and the project will also run an incubation programme to support the uptake of local start-ups with seed funds.
The collaborative project is the result of a strong partnership between leading European and African universities, research centres, industry actors, local governments, knowledge and implementation organisations and networks.
In addition, a key deliverable for the project is the SESA Toolbox, which will contain materials relating to the following main building blocks:
- Impact assessment
- Capacity building
- Business plans and models
- Innovations tested in demonstration actions
- Design, operations and management for different solutions
- Financing & funding options
- Policy support
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101037141