I found a good paper giving a summary of energy production and renewable electricity generation in Malawi from 2015. Definitely worth a read. http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/jesa/v26n2/03.pdf And a slightly older one from 2012. https://file.scirp.org/pdf/EPE_2013010415455754.pdf This page has some interesting statistics on Malawi energy production and consumption. https://www.worlddata.info/africa/malawi/energy-consumption.php Quite humorous that it says "Malawi can provide itself completely with ...

Summary of some key points from the above references, but bear in mind some of this data is from a few years ago Inadequate energy supply is one of the major problems confronting Malawi and limiting its social, economic and industrial development 85% of the population live in rural areas and has access only to wood and paraffin as major energy resources Overall electrification rate in Malawi is 10%, with 37% of the urban population and only 2% of the rural population having access to electrici...

Definitions 1Wh = 1W generated over 1 hour 1 toe = 1 tonne of oil equivalent energy = 11.63 megawatt-hours (MWh) 1 tonne of oil = approx $440 Calcs How much does 1kWh of energy from oil cost? 1kWh from oil = 440 / 11630 = $0.038 (not accounting for efficiency loss of fossil fuel to electricity conversion) How much energy is generated from 1sqm of solar array in 1 year? Assuming 244W/sqm of solar energy on average Assuming 15% efficiency of solar to electricity 1 year of electricity generat...

What would be a minimum investment? How many panels can you fit on 1 acre (4047sqm or 63m x 63m) of land? Several references (both referring to India and UK) suggest 1MW installation requires around 5 acres of land How much does 1 acre of suitable land cost? What are the possible sources of funding? ...

Is significant profit possible for a new market entrant, or is the industry only really open to established experts? Supply to household use, or to industry? What promotes growth? What has less risk? Supply to the grid, create own mini-grid, or sell standalone systems? An energy business would be as much investing in the country as in any physical hardware, land or infrastructure How do we estimate the costs of running a solar farm? Capital costs Land Solar panel arrays Inverters, transform...