Modelling Financing Schemes for Energy System Planning: A Mini-Grid Case Study

Energy modeling has been playing a crucial role in defining solutions for effective energy planning. Bottomup energy system planning models, namely those models characterized by high technological detail, typically present exogenous techno-economic parameters which rely on data gathered by the user, from specific costs to efficiencies. However, poor to no attention has been given to the date to the financial parameters of energy models, which are often assumed and barely justified (e.g., “discount rate equal to 10%”, full stop). Still, model outputs are drastically sensitive to variations of finance-related parameters and must provide the financing structure that a decision-maker should implement for funding the advised energy planning strategies. This results particularly crucial for mini-grid sizing in sub-Saharan African countries, where the challenge of the energy transition entails the construction of massive new capacities to improve energy access rates and tiers of service, demanding an enhanced collaboration between private and public sectors. The case study, applied on an off-grid mini-grid in Mozambique, proposes a comparison between scenarios with increasing financial detail and a possible conceptualization of the hard link between detailed financial modelling and a bottom-up energy model for mini-grid optimization. Different financing schemes are modelled and their impact on the energy modelling outputs assessed. Project finance hence emerges as a useful approach that could upgrade the financing structure of domestic power projects in African countries. This may lead to many benefits: more sustainable and affordable interest rates where corporate finance is missing, improved risk management, diversified funding mix, and facilitated financial support from international institutions

Enabling factors for the development of mini-grid solutions in Mozambique: A PESTLE-based analysis

Electricity is crucial for each country's economic and social development. More than half of the population in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) lack access to energy, which has dire consequences for the local population's living conditions, as well as affecting the local economy and increasing poverty. Renewable energy-based mini-grid (REBM) systems are the promising solution to mitigate the issue of energy access in rural areas, however, the expansion of renewable energy (RE) systems and the rate of energy access are both advancing at a slow pace. This study used PESTLE analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental) in the context of Mozambique, a SSA country, to identify the most important categories and factors to support decision-making processes by breaking down existing barriers and hurdles in the energy sector enabling them to plan and implement measures, subdivided in primary, secondary and tertiary for the development of REBM in remote settlements. Even though PESTLE analysis is rather often worldwide applied to the energy sector, its application to the Sub-Saharan context is rare, while its application to the Mozambique energy sector is absent in scientific literature. Besides, within our study, energy experts from different professional backgrounds and nationalities have been interviewed using an online questionnaire: 62 energy experts (48 Africans, and 14 Non-African) from 14 different countries assessed the categories and factors. The experts questioned identified the political category as the most crucial for policy-makers to prioritize, with the top three global weighting factors being, Clear Government policies (plan, regulation, priority, strategy) 5.79%, National financial scheme for RES investments 4.93%, and cost of investment 4.86%. The findings can support policy-makers breakdown barriers in the energy sector, planning and implementing measures for the REBM development, and contribute to achieving the SDG7 target

La sorveglianza dei potenziali rischi da integratori alimentari in Europa.

Il tema della sicurezza degli integratori alimentari, troppo spesso sottovalutato è stato oggetto del workshop “Food supplements vigilance systems in a public health perspective: the European context”, tenutosi presso l’International School of Pharmacology “Giampaolo Velo” di Erice lo scorso ottobre 2022

Erice Manifesto 2022: On the Surveillance of Potential Harms Caused by Food Supplements in Europe

No abstract availabl