Angola is included in the new Africa mini-grids program

It was launched on November 15th at COP27 the Africa Mini grids Program (AMP), a country-led technical assistance program that supports countries to rapidly and cost-effectively provide electricity and new development opportunities to some of Africa’s poorest communities.

Currently, the program includes twenty-one countries, distributed in three rounds and Angola is among the eight countries in the first round with a budget of US$1 million and with the Ministry of Energy and Water (MINEA) as a partner.

With funding led by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and implemented by UNDP in partnership with national governments, RMI (founded as Rocky Mountain Institute) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), the AMP’s market transformation approach aims to help countries crowd in private investment to scale up and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy mini grids.

Solar-battery mini grids hold great potential to boost electricity access in the AMP’s 21 countries – powering households, key social services such as health centres and schools, and businesses, driving economic growth.

UNDP modelling estimates that mini grids will be the lowest-cost approach to bring energy to 265 million people in these countries by the year 2030. US$65 billion in new investments, primarily from the private sector, would be needed to realize the mini grid opportunity in such countries. This is estimated to equate to the construction of 110,000 mini grids, bringing electricity to more than 200,000 schools and clinics, and more than 900,000 businesses.

“The AMP is UNDP’s most ambitious electricity access program to date. Its market transformation approach aims to deliver impact at the pace and scale needed to effectively help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, leaving no-one behind”, said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

With a focus on various cost-reduction levers, AMP aims to support scale-up investment by improving the financial viability of mini grids. The program will work with countries to put in place the policies and regulations that enable large-scale private investment, durably creating the conditions for renewable energy mini grids to be deployed at scale.

Goal: Scaling up action to bring new sustainable development opportunities across Africa

Access to energy is a precondition to socio-economic development. Yet half of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa – 568 million people – don’t have access to electricity, effectively locking some of the world’s most vulnerable communities in poverty. The AMP aims to bring the development benefits of energy access to a wide array of communities across the continent by focusing on supporting productive uses of energy, which supports socio-economic development by enhancing the quality of sectors that require energy input such as agriculture, healthcare, education, and small businesses.

"Green mini grids are not only key to closing Africa’s energy access gap, they can also provide a critical impetus to socio-economic development in rural areas, boost climate resilience and displace carbon-intensive fuel sources,” added Dr Daniel Schroth, Director, Department of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, African Development Bank.

The AMP aims to complement activities supporting mini grid investment in Africa, and has therefore identified three key areas of opportunities to focus on: national dialogues to identify the best ways to deploy mini grids; productive use of energy, and digitalization for mini grids.

The 21 AMP countries represent a diverse set of African countries, each with their own energy market specificities and development contexts: large and smaller markets; Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone countries; small island developing states; and countries in post-crisis contexts.

The AMP is a key component of UNDP’s pledge to mobilize partners through its Sustainable Energy Hub to enable 500 million additional people to have access to sustainable, affordable, reliable energy by 2025. AMP’s implementation has already started with the launch of the Nigeria and Eswatini national projects in 2022 and will continue until 2027.