Smart Integrated Community Energy in Northern Tanzania

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Minigrids are widely advocated as the most appropriate solution for solving universal energy access in the developing world. However, few minigrids achieve sustainable long-term operations without subsidy. Our partnership is trialling an innovative approach to minigrid design and installation in marginalised Maasai communities in Northern Tanzania. On our "Smart Village" electrification and development model, we work with communities to determine their needs and ability to pay, and design an integrated technology approach that combines a clean energy minigrid with a suite of appropriate and relevant technologies for productive uses, agricultural productivity and value addition, and community services such as healthcare, education and clean water, in order to promote sustainable long-term community development, which also has the effect of increasing demand for power from the minigrid and improving the community's ability to pay. We will test this approach in four offgrid Maasai communities, to try to achieve a sustainable business model that can be applied more widely, and will also follow a rigourous monitoring and impact analysis regime to collect the evidence necessary to prove the benefits of this approach.