Developing a smart distribution grid: Case study in Ethiopia

The development in sub-Saharan Africa faces major challenges, with only half of the population having access to electricity, and rural areas having even lower access rates. Due to stability concerns and overall business environment, it is very hard to facilitate the large infrastructure investments needed for the development of a green economy in Africa. This requires a radically new approach for power grids. In industrialized countries the grid has many redundancies built in to cope with eventual problems. However, the need for such redundancies can be significantly reduced if the grid is monitored and controlled in real time. This concept of Smart Grids, which leverages technologies like AI optimization algorithms, is currently under extensive research. Given the recent advances in embedded microcontrollers and low power modulation techniques, the required monitoring solutions can be greatly reduced in cost which makes these technologies also an option for countries in the global south. This paper presents such a low cost smart grid installation for the distribution grid. The approach was conceived along the example of Ethiopia and field tested in the city of Harar in Eastern Ethiopia. This paper presents the conceptional idea together with the first results of the demonstration installation.