Not long ago it made the announcement that RES4MED become RES4Africa. Why?
RES4MED stems from the desire of Enel aggregate profit and institutional bodies for the electrical integration and cooperation between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean; a challenge that has produced interesting results. We were not in any country, we are now in the process of investing in Morocco and Egypt, and we are studying the entrance in Tunisia and Algeria. This whole promotion, study and cooperation has facilitated us. Now the natural step is to RES4Africa, the goal as a company is to operate on a continental scale and we are already involved in so many countries. It is a good example of cooperation between profit and non-profit, we cooperate with research centers for technological aspects and try to translate it into concrete investments and infrastructure that the search will stop at the theoretical or experimental stage. Obviously governments are our natural counterpart, in this area we can not leave without a political will. We are not a depauperativa industry, we are fortunate to work in an industry that generates value for local communities, we use wind, sun, water and geothermal energy and is used for development. We produce energy for the local market, where “local” should be contextualized: our highest aspiration is to produce for the local context in which we operate, if there is a wind farm in a given province of Kenya, our ambition is that the production generate development there. Historically consumption and production were not superimposed because it was produced with megacentrali in a few places, but renewables are a novelty in this sense. Today, production is distributed and is more logical to think that production and consumption can approach.
Africa is the continent of paradox has many energy resources, even in terms of renewable energy – water, sun , wind – but it is the continent in the dark. Why?
The speed with which the technologies that use renewable sources have reduced dependence on fossil fuels and have become competitive is in part a response to this concern. Those of us planning electrification through renewable it does not only to the environment but also for reasons of economic competitiveness: today the cost of energy from renewable sources is lower and more stable in the long term.
Africa puts in a strong theme of the last mile. How does Enel shares with respect to this problem?
Enel is also the distribution, it will never lose the enthusiasm for the last mile. Without the last mile there is the consumer customer. There are many ways to get there: the distribution of regional and metropolitan scale or, today, thanks to the possibility of building the renewable micro-grid for a few homes. We are also engaged in this, in rural areas of Chile, Peru and Kenya, for example, putting together sustainability and push technology, relying on the mobile as a means of payment. Mini and micro-grid is the front on which we are working hard, but we are also funding studies interesting. In some areas of Kenya we provided a device for the illumination combined with a solar panel. Giving an availability of two hours light at night did significantly improve the educational attainment of children, mothers have been able to do small jobs, families have saved the cost of kerosene. This solution allows families to remain in the place where they were born and where they would like to raise their children; an interesting solution to combat the phenomenon of urbanization.
Do you have the know-how on the part of local governments there is a lot of interest, what is missing? There
missing the local dimension, having direct knowledge of many small local needs. The relationship with the non-profit can allow us to have access to this knowledge, we can then bring the concrete answer to specific needs. Sure to operate in evolving markets must have resilience, wisdom, patience … These countries have difficulties, starting with the transparency, but in return they offer a dynamic population growth and economic unknown to mature markets, then from our side there is much enthusiasm, we feel we contribute to the progress of a country, the awareness to create a positive force for economic and social development. This creates motivation and sense of responsibility.
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