Welcome to the first part of the interview with Daniel Bungey, Future Energy Leader at World Energy Council and a past recipient of the Young Energy Professional Award (Sub-Saharan Africa) from the AEE.

This is the first interview of the 6th season, where we explored the implementation of smart metering in Africa, and gain valuable insights into the progress, challenges, and future potential from an industry expert.

What are the key drivers, lessons learned, and the road ahead for smart metering implementation in Africa, find out in the text below.

Can you tell us more about your work at World Energy Council and World Energy Council plans regarding Energy field in Africa?

I am currently in my second year as a Future Energy Leader (FEL) of the World Energy Council (WEC). The Future Energy Leaders programme is a three-year programme by the World Energy Council providing a platform for the professional development of future energy leaders from different backgrounds, especially those in their mid-level careers in the energy sector.

As an FEL, I work closely with the Kenya member committee, as well as the global team, to share in insights, perspectives and learnings on different energy topics. It’s also a platform for learning and mentorship, especially from those who have extensive experience in the energy sector. There is also the important element of cross-learning and together contributing to shaping narratives as it applies to the energy sector.

From a Kenya and African context, the World Energy Council offers a unique platform for me as a young person to learn about the best practices that have worked in different areas of energy sector development globally and to see how this can be contextualized to develop truly sustainable clean energy systems.

FELs get a chance to participate in regional and global convenings like the one that recently happened in Amsterdam – World Energy Congress 2024. Beyond participation, FELs get to contribute their perspectives as young people, which is very important. Additionally, we receive mentorship from experienced individuals, which helps us build our confidence as potential future energy leaders that will shape and contribute positively to the development of the energy sector.

In summary, the World Energy Council is a truly global convening of different people and professionals in the energy space. The Future Energy Leaders program within it brings together a diversity of young people, including from the continent of Europe and the Global South aligning quite well with our topic of sharing experiences between Europe and Africa.

What is the status of smart metering deployment across African distribution companies and which countries are leading in this space?

Smart metering in Africa is at an early stage, quite nascent to be precise. Some of the leading countries that have already made headways in rolling out smart metering systems are South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya – these being some of the top three countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. There are also great initiatives in countries like Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia and Angola. The penetration of smart metering in these countries is driven by technology availability, regulatory environment, as well as financial incentives plus the general desire by utilities to improve efficiency.

Narrowing down to uptake at the utility level you could easily differentiate between the government or the central grid utilities and the privately-operated utilities. You’ll realize that most of the smart metering systems being deployed are by the private sector-led utilities, mostly in the landscape of mini-grids as well as the integrated grids that are emerging.

South Africa has massive rollouts of smart metering systems, and in Nigeria, there are a number of distribution utilities that are adopting smart metering system as an outcome of the Nigerian energy regulatory requirements that enabled the establishment of meter-asset provide frameworks that allows utilities to enter into metering service contracts with specialized companies allowing them to focus on their core distribution business. For Kenya, I’d say the smart metering systems by the central utility is at the pilot stage (less than 1% penetration) and the utility is transitioning into a scale roll out going by recent calls for tenders on smart meters.

As I indicated, the mini-grid space is quite significant, and the mini-grid approach for energy access is a big thing in Africa. It’s majorly private sector-led, and most of them have done a great job in embedding smart metering systems into their deployments because it facilitates efficiency and performance improvement in terms of collection, understanding the dynamics of the grid, enabling improvement of technical performance, as well as reducing losses. So, that is quite a motivation for most private sector companies to deploy smart metering systems.

Most of the data points I’m presenting are from Sub-Saharan Africa. There could be higher penetrations in the northern side, like in Egypt and Tunisia, for instance.

The most crucial elements that have enabled South Africa’s success, which I think would also be the case in Egypt and some of the Sahel countries like Morocco, are technology availability, which is mostly driven by manufacturing capabilities, as well as supply chain capacities and capabilities. Additionally, the availability of funding for utilities to prioritize the implementation of smart grids is one of the key factors.

Can you share any experience of successful pilot programs for smart metering in Africa and what role does collaboration with international partners play in executing these rollouts?

Yes. There has been a number pilot projects rolled out by state owned utilities and  privately-operated utilities in the mini-grid space. We have very good examples from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and even Somalia.

In terms of scale implementation by central utilities, we have Kenya, for instance, having done a pilot on smart metering two years ago. Some of the key lessons from that pilot are now informing what they are trying to do in terms of scale rollouts. We have a number of pilots also done in multiple countries, including Nigeria and Senegal.

For the private developers, again, reiterating that most of them have taken it as a mainstay. So, it’s no longer really a pilot – it’s more about how they improve on the utilization of data that’s collected from smart metering, and it is not really at the pilot stage anymore. Most of the mini-grid developments done globally are in Africa, if you look at the penetration of mini-grids, it’s quite high. Therefore, if that is layered with the fact that they deploy smart metering systems, there are avenues for really more learnings and lessons to be taken from some of the projects they have done.

Pilots by the state-owned utilities are majorly done with the support of international institutions like the World Bank and the African Development Bank. The World Bank has ESMAP, which offers technical advisory and policy formulation support for different countries. The state-owned utilities still represent a major chunk of the connections that are metered via conventional meters or standard prepaid metering systems and not necessarily smart metering systems.

Conclusions:
Smart metering is still in its early stages across Africa, with significant progress in countries in North Africa and Sub-Saharan countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. While South Africa has achieved large-scale rollouts, Kenya and Nigeria are still transitioning from pilot/early stages and eyeing broader implementation with private-sector led utilities being on the forefront of implementing smart metering in mini-grid employments.

Successful smart metering initiatives are dependent on favorable policies, availability of technology, funding incentives, and active private sector initiatives.

International collaborations, especially with institutions like the World Bank, African Development Bank as well as between utilities themselves, regulators and suppliers are crucial to achieving scale roll outs by state-owned utilities.

Question for the audience:

What do you think, how can government, utilities and international partners accelerate large-scale Smart Metering rollouts and ensure widespread adoption across the Africa?