Huawei Microgrid Solar Solution Powers Rural Cameroon

Background

Cameroon Water Resources and Energy Ministry is responsible for formulating the plan and strategy of energy and water resource supplies, developing, and managing specific projects for this African nation’s energy and water resources.

Challenges

Cameroon’s electricity development has been quite slow; the areas covered by electrification are only 28 percent of the country’s territory, and 80 percent of the power is concentrated in the capital of Yaoundé as well as the economic port, Douala. Unfortunately, only 56.8 percent of the population has access to electricity; the national population was just under 24 million (by 2016), which means more than 40 percent of the population lives without power. About 80 percent of the rural population still uses wood as their primary life energy. According to the Cameroon national power development planning, the current investments into hydropower, thermal power stations, and national grid construction is quite extensive, yet development cannot meet the power demands for the vast number of country’s residents in the short term.

Cameroon urgently wants to realize “rural electrification” in order to: Improve the electricity access rate in rural areas, improve the living standards of its citizens, promote the development and utilization of local resources, and further drive the development of education, medical care, communications, manufacturing, and other industries.

Solution

Huawei — with strong technical capabilities in the field of photovoltaic inverters, along with continuous technological innovations and long-term accumulated experience in the energy storage field — provides its Microgrid Solar Solution. This advanced solution contains an energy storage system and supports diesel generator access, with the goal to provide reliable power for areas without grids or access to power. Huawei provides standardized and customized configurations according to customers’ requirements and load conditions. The solution supports PV-installed capacity between 30 kW to 300 kW for now, and can expand to a MW-level installed capacity by 2018.

With advanced Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) technology, high efficiency inverter, advanced charging and discharging management technologies, the overall system power generation capacity is 3 percent more than other solutions which also helps customers achieve more benefits. The energy storage system utilizes battery technology that withstands high temperatures and still provides good performance in these environments. Huawei implements a natural cooling design according to Cameroon’s climate situation, which greatly reduces its system power consumption.

Meters are installed in the users’ homes which can recharge according to their electricity demands. The background management system processes the automated electricity metering by recording the sales details and usage information, and helps to simplify the management of the operations department.

Benefits

After completion of the project’s phase Ⅰ, Huawei Microgrid Solar Solution now helps 166 villages (and over 120,000 people) benefit from electricity in Cameroon; the average annual power generation is more than 17 million kWh, the rural electricity coverage rate increases from 18 percent to 20 percent. This project greatly enhances local residents’ living standards, education and medical conditions, and improves basic conditions for the development of agriculture, communications, and manufacturing industries. The project has been widely recognized by local citizens, and the government also receives more political support from its people.

With its simple, efficient, and reliable features, Huawei Microgrid Solar Solutions are constantly winning customers’ trust, providing power in remote and isolated areas previously not able to receive energy, and creating much greater value for society.