Sitolo Solar PV Minigrid, Malawi

The idea was to reliably and sustainably electrify the village while providing support for agriculture and other ways of income generation. The presentation stressed on the importance of a good financial model for sustaining these mini grids, and technical expertise in running the minigrid. Labour for constructing and maintaining the grid was provided by the villagers (who were trained for the purpose) and a one-time fee of MWK 20000 was levied as a connection fee. This fee is also an impediment to electrification goals. Tariffs initially were based on a fixed pay slab, but they have found that a prepaid scheme works better in this region. The maximum peak hour output is 5KWh, 155 households, 1 primary school, 1 maize mill, two churches, and two barber shops are connected by this scheme. The fixed tariffs they experimented with are USD 0.18 for households, USD 0.19 for businesses, and USD 0.09 for social gatherings.