Editorial:

The road to Rural Photovoltaic Electrification

Tanzania needs more electricity to light her rural communities constituting more than 74% of the entire population of 35 million.

High costs of rural electrification has limited the country to provide grid electricity services to only 10% of population and only 2% for the rural population.

A range of studies conducted by the transformation of the rural Photovoltaic (PV) Market project shows that meeting these electricity needs with renewable energy particularly in PV is realistic, affordable and achievable.

Most of the rural areas in Tanzania are uniquely positioned and with minimal available resources can lead the way in developing PV technologies.

Some of the progresses recorded so far to show that these technologies are well accepted in the country particularly in Mwanza where the project is being implemented, and the uptake is at slowly increasing rate.

Villagers are now buying small PV systems stocked by district dealers and awareness among rural household is increasingly reflected by these suppliers.

The project highly commends the parliament for recognizing the pivotal role PV can play on rural communities living away from Tanzania’s electricity grid by passing a bill to exempt solar and wind energy equipment from Value Added Tax (VAT) and other duties.

Various impact have been recorded following the move including reduction in price for PV system making them more affordable to a range of population segments and many other market advantages.

Our main goal is to persuade and encourage the rural populace to harvest solar resources using PV system to generate clean energy which is environmental friendly instead of relying on expensive and hazardous fossil fuel.

Tanzania can and should be an African model in PV penetration in rural areas and we welcome the challenges to make this heppening.