Open Energy Access EnAccess

Picture a remote island, populated by many small and medium-sized communities. The local economy largely runs on a fishing industry. Children go to school, markets sell food & goods, but two important things are missing: reliable energy access and connectivity. There's no real cell signal in the village of Maybuuho, Philippines. This means that not only do people lack the ability to communicate outside their village, renewable energy solutions like solar-powered mini-grids or Solar Home Systems aren't very easy to use.

Without any sort of connectivity, modern off-grid energy companies that are operating today end up de-prioritising "zero connectivity" locations, which exist all around the world. Okra is a technology company that manufactures everything needed to set up what they call a "mesh grid" as a kit, and then sell those kits to  Energy Access companies (like SHS or Mini-Grid companies) around the world. Their latest innovation is called the Cicada WiFi, an open source communications module, that brings WiFi connectivity to remote areas using VSAT technology.

Tamara Mahoney from EnAccess and Oscar Aitchison from Okra talk about Cicadas - not the insects, but the chip - today on Open Energy Access. They discuss the impact this technology had not only for the company that participated in their pilot, but also potential impact for the village of Maybuuho, who could be offered Internet As A Service for the first time.  

More information: https://enaccess.org/materials/okra-cicada/ 

In this episode of Open Energy Access, I talk with Ricky Buch (Tech lead) about why project developers should start integrating into the D-REC platform today. The D-REC, or Distributed Renewable Energy Certificate, was created to solve a problem that will have a direct benefit for Energy Access project developers and for corporates who want the biggest return on their investment in renewable energy in terms of climate impact.

In this episode, we'll discuss:
- How you can generate new revenue streams with D-RECs
- Steps of integrating into the D-REC platform
- Why the D-REC platform is Open Source
- What makes the D-REC stand out as the most promising way to monetize environmental attributes in the DRE space

This episode was originally recorded as a web series and is posted on Youtube. If you also like to watch your podcasts, then subscribe to the EnAccess YouTube channel.

Links:
enaccess.org/drecs
d-recs.energy
D-RECs on GitHub
Energy Web Foundation Origin

Contact:
D-RECs developers
EnAccess Support

Today, I'm talking with Paul Needham and Ricky Buch from Positive Capital Partners. EnAccess is one of the funders of a project they are working on, together with South Pole, called the D-REC Initiative. 
The D-REC, or Distributed Renewable Energy Certificate is being created to solve a problem that will have a direct benefit for Energy Access project developers and for corporates who want the biggest return on their investment in renewable energy in terms of climate impact.

In a place like California, a homeowner who installs solar panels on their house can actually sell the renewable energy that those panels create, creating a way to make money. There is no equivalent to this for DRE developers working in off grid locations, which basically means the energy access industry hasn’t yet been able to tap into the already-existing demand for renewable energy attributes. And on the other side, corporates haven’t had the chance to make the kind of climate impact that they could be making, if they were to have a certifiable way of investing into distributed renewable energy.  This is where we need the D-REC:  an open source, internationally accepted market instrument which can validate, and put a real monetary value on the environmental benefit provided by DRE systems.

In this conversation, Paul and Ricky talk about how they got this Initiative off the ground and why Open Source is so important for its' success.

Links:
enaccess.org/drecs
d-recs.energy
D-RECs on GitHub
Energy Web Foundation Origin
EnAccess blog post
EnAccess was the first to step in with funding for this project from, and we are really happy to currently be joined by the Shell Foundation, Good Energies Foundation, Signify Foundation, GIZ-DeveloPPP, the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), UNDP, the IFC, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). 

In this episode, I’m talking with James Vasile, a Partner in Open Tech Strategies, a consultation firm based in New York City. This conversation is going to explore the why/why not,  the upsides and any downsides about open source in energy access. I’m going to try and cover some of the most common questions that I hear.

James Vasile is a recognized expert on free and open source software. He has over fifteen years of experience as a user, developer, advocate, and advisor in all things open source; and has further expertise in licensing and community-building, as well as non-profit and small business startup. Open Tech Strategies works with a wide range of clients such as Microsoft, the MacArthur Foundation, The Red Cross.

Why should people open source their work? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? What should you consider before you pick which license you want to go with?  James helps companies figure out these questions every day.

Blog series mentioned in the episode: Open Source At Large

**This project has been moved over to Resilient Oxygen and their sister organisation CREATIVenergie. Learn more at https://www.resilientoxygen.org/

The Resilient Oxygen (R-O2) Project centers around the development of an oxygen concentrator specifically designed for robustness and reliability in challenging conditions whilst being simple and affordable to repair in low resource settings (LRS). 

When this episode was recorded, I spoke with Phil Bonnett, an anesthesiologist who has worked in a hospital in Zambia, in Africa. 

Today I'm going to be talking with Camille André-Bataille, the CEO of ANKA Madagascar, about an idea for a new business model called AgriGrid - the idea of pairing access to electricity with local agricultural sectors. 

The AgriGrid business model refers to a hybrid organization that combines commercial opportunities in rural electrification with food & agricultural value chain development. The idea is that beyond providing electricity, an AgriGrid operator would also play an active role in developing rural food & agricultural market activity. There’s so much to explore about this idea and how to integrate energy services with agriculture - ranging from a mini-grid company that acts as a services provider to existing agricultural intermediaries, or going all the way through to a fully integrated agribusiness that grows, processes, packages, and retails its own food products – in addition to selling electricity to the community. 
The AgriGrid concept was created by ANKA Madagascar and Amanhã Ventures, and the EnAccess Foundation is proud to have supported this open source R&D project. All the materials can be found at enaccess.org/agrigrid.