Energy Management in Botswana and Sub Saharan Africa (EMBOSSA)

4b821ef8-cceb-43fb-bc09-995a1605f8f7

Closed

EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC

£506,030

April 30, 2017

March 31, 2018

The nature of current Botswana electricity market can be summarized as: low security and high cost.

Low security: the country sees an annual consumption around 3650 GWh, where at least 70% electricity is imported from
South Africa. Such high dependency is a cause of great concern to the country's energy security, which is severely affected
after the South Africa energy crisis in 2008. Coupled with its sole generation plant (Morupule) under refurbishment, the
country is grappling with load shedding which occurs on a daily basis. Even with a well-documented load-shedding
schedule in place, unexpected load shedding occurs when a locality's energy demand exceeds 50 MW. The industry
productivity and household life quality are thus severely affected.

High cost: Botswana has a population just over 2 million, 13.4% of which are living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 per
day), 30.6% in poverty and only 2.7% in urban areas. With a national average income less than £500 per household per
month, household has to pay £30-100 electricity bills per month depending on the season, which accounts for
approximately 13% of the total income.

Swanbarton, a UK SME, will lead a consortium of University of Bath, University of Botswana Clean Energy Research
Centre (CERC) and Yuasa Batteries UK in testing the technical and commercial feasibility of a system to support people in
Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia through the project of EMBOSSA. EMBOSSA will address this problem by enabling
them to have a low-cost energy store sufficient to ensure constant lighting and mobile communications. The energy store
will be capable of construction locally, mostly from recycled materials (including second-life car batteries and smartphones)
and following designs which we will provide as open source, at prices affordable even for poor households. The energy
store will be controlled by battery management software with an optimisation system embedded. It makes charge/discharge
decisions based on the electricity tariff, demand estimation and load shedding schedule. The idea is to charge the battery
during off-peak times and discharge during peak-time or load shedding periods to: i) saving energy bills and ii) improving
electricity security.

The key innovations are:
i) As the battery system is recycled, it delivers energy security at a price point that's an order of magnitude lower than
comparable European and North American solutions.

ii) It uses mobile communications technology to integrate the home system to the electricity supplier's systems so that the
energy management system could optimize multiple objectives including energy cost, energy security and network
congestion.

iii) It improves the optimisation performance by integrating real-time load profile estimation from cloud data, which provides an accurate and dynamic understanding of household demand.

This project will test the technical and commercial feasibility of such a system to support people in Sub-Saharan Africa. The
system will help householders by ensuring that essential services are not interrupted by power cuts, and help them to
reduce energy bills. It also helps electricity companies to make fewer power cuts at times of peak load and defer network
investment.

The recycled hardware will not only stimulate local recycling economy but also give redundant hardware containing toxic
materials a second life and saved from landfill. A single kerosene lamp will generate a tonne of carbon over five years.
EMBOSSA will also reduce air pollution by enabling local poor households by reducing the use of kerosene.

Potential Impact:
The direct beneficiary of project EMBOSSA will be Swanbarton and other related UK industry, Botswana energy
consumers and network operators.

UK industry
Current energy storage management system usually has three limitations: i) one single unified control system without
considering the variance of customers behaviours and needs; ii) static load profiling without considering the variance over
days; iii) high cost. These issues become particularly critical in Botswana and developing countries due to the wide range
of customer social-eco status, uncertainty in customers' behaviours and low income. Our innovation in customer tailored
optimisation and dynamic load profiling will boost the product development of Swanbarton and give it the business
advantage in Botswana. Coupled with the novel recycled open-source hardware plan, this ambitious project becomes
feasible and promising Successful project outcomes will stimulate an emerging buoyant market to the benefit of many other
related energy companies, for example battery manufacturers. It will also boost the recycle economy and increase job
opportunity in the UK.

Botswana Economy benefits
The product will reduce customer energy bills by charging at off-peak periods and discharging at peak times. Given the
time-of-use reflect the network condition, our energy management system will effectively reduce network congestions and
thus lower the risk of outage and defer network reinforcement. Also, the recycled hardware will stimulate the local recycling
economy including used car battery and smartphones.

Botswana Social benefits
EMBOSSA will provide affordable energy management system to enhance energy security. As power outage occurs on a
daily basis in many SSA countries, EMBOSSA will be able to maintain essential service during these periods. This will
improve local education by giving children the light with which to study without interruption.
EMOSSA will also enhance public health by enabling remote villages to use electricity lighting instead of toxic kerosene,
paraffin or candles. Over 600 million people in Africa (91% population) do not have access to electricity. EMBOSSA could
also provide power for essential activities in hospitals including emergency treatment, surgery and refrigeration of organs,
vaccines and medication.
EMBOSSA will also protect networks against demand surges at the end of load shedding periods. The tailored control will
enable each type of customer to use electricity efficiently without compromising life quality. As 70% Botswana's energy is
imported from South Africa, EMBOSSA will help the country towards energy independence, especially when the import isdisrupted.

Botswana Environmental benefits
In Botswana, 250000 tons of waste is generated annually; however, only 38% of this is properly disposed. EMBOSSA will
give redundant hardware containing toxic materials a second life, saving it from landfill. A single kerosene lamp will
generate a tonne of carbon over five years. EMBOSSA will also reduce air pollution by enabling local poor households by
reducing the use of kerosene