Bake bread while the sun shines: Solar bakery for off-grid rural community development

In South Africa there are still more than 1.5 million households which are unlikely to be connected to the utility grid in the near future. These rural communities are faced with economic development, social and environmental challenges brought about as a result of not being connect to the utility grid. Renewable energy offers environmentally favourable and cost effective solutions which are attractive for rural development of communities not connected to the utility grid. Gwakwani is an off-grid rural village situated in northern Limpopo South Africa. As a result of being off-grid, economic and social development of the village was haltered and become near stagnant. In this paper a renewable solar energy solution is utilised in the Gwakwani rural off-grid community for the powering of a small bakery. A solarised container bakery was developed and installed in the community. The bakery operated by four bakers is capable of producing up to 160 loafs of bread per day. The bakery has become the main supplier of bread to the neighbouring communities and is now the largest source of income and employment in Gwakwani, driving economic development. An overview of the technical implementation, bakery operation as well as the social aspects are presented. Social development was facilitated through the training of community members on the operation of the bakery and the economic business development thereof. Results from the social and economic impact of the off-grid solar bakery are presented and discussed.