The past 25-28 October, 2022 the SESA consortium hosted its first General Assembly and Regional Event.  The visit took place in Nairobi and Kisumu (Kenya) and gathered 46 representatives from the organisations part of the initiative. The activities were divided into three main events: The General Assembly which took place from 25-26 October in Nairobi, where partners got together in person for the first time to share achieved milestones, engage in collaborative work and define next steps for the project. The first Regional event took place from 27-28 October in Kisumu, involving the...

Capacity building forms a vital part of successful and sustainable climate action projects and initiatives in Africa. Understanding the context-specific capacity gaps and needs in an area can shed light on the most suitable route to take to build capacity and, in turn, ramp up the success of a project. For this reason, capacity needs assessments and capacity building planning activities are embedded in the Sustainable Energy Solutions for Africa (SESA) project.   The SESA project works to increase energy access in Africa, supporting the uptake of scalable and replicable energy access...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This deliverable summarizes the on-going activities of Work Package 4 of the Sustainable Energy Solutions Africa (SESA) project (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation framework programme under Grant Agreement No. 101037141). The SESA project involves a modular living lab demonstration action in Kenya, 4 validation demonstration projects in Morocco, Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa, and 4 replication demonstration projects in Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Nigeria. This report comprises Five demonstration Implementation Plans (for Kenya, Morocco, Ghana, Malawi...

What is the purpose of the Kenya Living Lab? And how are SESA actions going to be implemented there? The goal of the Kenyan living lab is to serve as a real-life test bed for piloting and testing innovative energy technologies and business models in rural and peri-urban contexts. The overall objective of the living lab is to test and provide sustainable energy access solutions that are relevant for both urbanized and rural contexts in Africa.  The living lab approach will be implemented by co-creating, testing and evaluating innovative technologies and business models with local users in...

In addition to the energy-access solutions being developed and implemented at the living-lab sites themselves, the SESA Toolbox is one of the key outputs of the SESA project. It is not only a 'deliverable' by itself, but more importantly, its content will reflect the insights and learnings from many of the activities that will be undertaken by the many collaborating SESA partners. The toolbox will therefore contain information that is collected and created by all partners during the project’s development, implementation, and use of the solutions across the demonstration and validation sites....

The past 29th June we had the pleasure to host our first session at World Urban Forum Eleventh Session in Katowice (Poland).  Building sustainable, secure and resilient energy systems at scale through local action gathered speakers from the SESA consortium and guests actively working on the topic. The moderation was in charge of SESA coordinator Giorgia Rambelli, Coordinator Climate Policy and Energy Governance, ICLEI European Secretariat; Lea Ranalder, Associate Programme Management Officer, UN-Habitat; Rana Adib, Executive Director, REN21; Rohit Sen, Head, Sustainable Energy ICLEI World...

Building sustainable, secure and resilient energy systems at scale through local action Global warming brings harmful consequences to communities, and ecosystems around the world, and low carbon solutions to mitigate the effect of climate change, and increase the resilience of our communities are increasingly crucial. Incentivising community-owned RES is pivotal to securing energy access in remote vulnerable areas, helping the energy system to bounce back following extreme climate events, strengthening energy security, and increasing resilience to economic shocks. Implementing innovative...

The SESA project involves a modular living lab demonstration action in Kenya, 4 validation demonstration projects in Morocco, Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa; and 4 replication demonstration projects in Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Nigeria. SESA draws upon thematic experts from Europe and Africa from relevant fields of application to provide insights and guidance to the support co-development of the living labs. Each site has an implementation plan, the guiding roadmap for the living lab to achieve its sustainability goals. The plans describe the context needs and innovative energy...

By Stefanie Holzwarth from UN-Habitat   The Global Energy Demand Regardless of the source, energy is a major factor for development. It is needed for transport, industrial and commercial activities, buildings and infrastructure, water distribution, and food production. Most of these activities take place in or around cities, which are on average responsible for more than 75 per cent of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and therefore the main engines of global economic growth. To run their activities, cities require an uninterrupted supply of energy. They consume about 75 per cent...