Improving Africa’s access to sustainable energy

Implemented in nine African countries, the EU-funded SESA project will develop and test solutions to accelerate the green transition and energy access in Africa. It will explore innovative technologies and services in urban and rural contexts and support their uptake, deepening technical, financial and policy aspects. Specifically, SESA will co-develop innovations with local partners. 

The first phase will start in Kenya, where solutions include using water hyacinths from Lake Victoria to produce biogas. In the second phase, SESA will test energy solutions in Ghana, Malawi, Morocco and South Africa. The findings, included in a scalable toolbox for advanced implementation and management strategies, will facilitate the applicability and replicability of the technologies.

SESA will facilitate a structured co-development process, which starts with the co-development of energy access innovations that have a high potential for take-up and are tested, validated and later replicated. Each technology will be demonstrated in the living lab, and a corresponding information and training package is created. Each of the living lab team will consist of technology experts, local implementation partners (members of the consortium) along with local authorities (associated partners) and innovators (recruited through the seed-funding call), guided by business development, finance and policy experts.

Demonstration actions will aim to test innovative technologies and services in different contexts that have a high level of replicability and a high potential for long-term sustainability. The project aims to achieve a high level of replicability of actions. As part of an effort to go beyond the state of the art and maximise the project?s impact, the project will co-develop innovations with local partners and cooperate closely with sister projects to exploit synergies. 

Solutions that will be tested in this project have been selected on their basis of their replication potential. Demonstration concepts aim to integrate several solutions to provide essential energy services to rural and urban communities and create easily replicable business opportunities for local entrepreneurs. 

The co-developed demonstration actions will be initially tested in the Kenya living lab and based on the initial learnings, various aspects of the tested innovations will be validated in living labs in different socio-economic operating environments (Ghana, South Africa, Malawi and Morocco). The learning from the validation living labs will strengthen the applicability and replicability of the technologies as well as the basic business concepts, which will be shared in the SESA toolbox and incubator programme.

Partners

• ICLEI EUROPEAN SECRETARIAT GMBH (ICLEI EUROPASEKRETARIAT GMBH)
• AALBORG UNIVERSITET
• AKENTEN APPIAH-MENKA UNIVERSITY OF SKILLS TRAINING AND ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT
• STIFTELSEN BASIC INTERNET
• BLEKINGE TEKNISKA HOGSKOLA
• E-LICO FOUNDATION
• F6S NETWORK IRELAND LIMITED
• F6S NETWORK LIMITED
• GREEN ENERGY PARK
• GOING GREEN
• ICLEI - LOCAL GOVERNMENTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY EV
• ICLEI-LOCAL GOVERNMENTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY-AFRICA
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT BERLIN
• ACONDICIONAMIENTO TARRASENSE ASSOCIACION
• MAKE IT GREEN SOLUTIONS AB
• METANOGENIA SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
• NELSON MANDELA UNIVERSITY
• NAMIBIA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• STIFTELSEN THE STOCKHOLM ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE
• SMART INNOVATION NORWAY AS
• SIEMENS STIFTUNG
• STICHTING CENEX NEDERLAND
• RISE RESEARCH INSTITUTES OF SWEDEN AB
• FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION
• UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA
• DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET
• UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME
• UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME
• URBAN ELECTRIC MOBILITY INITIATIVE (UEMI) GGMBH
• WE!HUB VICTORIA LIMITED
• WUPPERTAL INSTITUT FUR KLIMA, UMWELT, ENERGIE GGMBH

Start date: 1 October 2021 - End date: 30 September 2025