Follow a webinar of African regional workshops on Renewable Energies in Africa

The context

The African Renewable Energy Technology Platform (AFRETEP) has been designed to build a network of African research institutions dealing with renewable energy, including academic and research exchange programmes.

Driven by the EU-Africa Joint Strategy and responding to the needs of African population to increase access to sustainable energy, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has been building a renewable energy platform to improve the scientific and technical analytical capacity of the African community on support of sustainable energy planning. This includes scientific and technical knowledge sharing, promoting cooperation and coordination of sustainable development stakeholders and providing scientific information to the energy planning strategies.

The drivers

Support sustainable energy planning for rural electrification.

The project developed a consolidated technical and socio-economic base for assessing rural electrification projects, defining criteria to be used in the evaluation of grid extension vs. off-grid solutions.

Creation and maintenance of a web-based platform

The African and Renewable Energy Platform (AFRETEP) aims to assist in the set-up of a network of African research institutions dealing with renewable energy (700+ members, mostly African).

The workshops

Three Capacity building workshops have been carried out for African researchers and students by JRC and other invited EU and African experts.

The workshops were organised with the cooperation of African Universities in Uganda, Burkina Faso and South Africa. The aim was to enhance the multiplying effect by training trainers: almost 100 University teachers, practitioners having expertise in renewable energies, technologies, tools and rural electrification have attended to the three regional workshops.

AFRETEP 1^st Regional Workshop: East Africa. Hold in Kampala, Uganda, from15^th-19^th October 2011 with the support of Makerere University. Topics covered: Social-economic aspects, Mini Hydro projects and Photovoltaic technology and mapping.

AFRETEP 2^nd Regional Workshop: West Africa. Hold in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 7^th-11^th November 2011 with the support of Foundation 2iE. Topics: Biomass and Photovoltaic technology and mapping.

AFRETEP 3^rd Regional Workshop: Southern Africa. Hold in South Africa, 20^th-24^th February 2012, with the support of the Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town. Topics: Financial schemes, Photovoltaic technology –mapping and poverty reduction through rural electrification.

Out of 263 applicants, 96 were selected, representing 30 different African countries finally who attended to one of the regional workshops.

The Webinars

All sessions were video-recorded to improve both the communication and the dissemination of scientific information. They are freely accessible (after registration) through the AFRETEP platform (www.afretep.net or http://www.euei.net/wg/african-renewable-energy-technology-platform-afretep) as virtual workshops.