Pioneering Community Energy for Development in Malawi

Abstract

Community energy projects are increasingly common in Malawi to provide energy access in a country with the lowest electricity access rates in the world. However, they face challenges, some of which only become apparent during the process of implementation. This chapter asks what the lessons from the combined experiences of different implementing community energy projects in different locations in Malawi are.

The research took a comparative approach using primary data from five field visits to community energy sites in the districts Rumphi, Mchinji, Dedza, Mulanje and Nsanje and a literature review including project documents. The analysis shows that community energy projects have a net positive impact on communities, but they face challenges related to dealing with an inadequate regulatory system, facilitating community participation and leadership and managing unexpected events. The recommendation is to provide long-life and ad hoc support to these projects, for example, via government subsidies.

9.1 Introduction

Off-grid mini-grids and other decentralized energy systems can facilitate local electrification, and they have recently been identified as having the potential to facilitate an economic boom in African regions with gaps in electricity access rates (EEP Africa, 2018). They provide communities with the agency to lead such a process of local electrification. However, a common refrain heard in policy circles is that a viable business model for community energy projects does not exist yet. From the perspective of energy operators, there are external pressures and economic conditions that prevent those business models based around communities from succeeding. In Malawi, some of the most salient challenges include wrestling with systems of governance and regulation and facilitating community participation and leadership.

Decades of experience of community energy projects in Malawi can be capitalized to facilitate an energy future in which community energy becomes ubiquitous. What can be learnt from existing experiences of community energy in Malawi? This chapter presents a comparative analysis of existing community energy projects, focusing on the conditions and challenges of implementation.

Primary data was collected from field visits to five community energy sites in the districts Rumphi, Mchinji, Dedza, Mulanje and Nsanje. A literature review of published and grey literature complemented the dataset. In every case, community energy has proven to play an important role in facilitating access to electricity, and the projects are presented as fundamental to facilitate community and household-level development. However, the projects face multiple challenges both in terms of adapting to governmental regulations and in managing the process of community involvement. The analysis provides policy recommendations, especially the need to support communities directly to facilitate the adaptation of energy systems to different locations, including explicitly both domestic and productive uses of energy and providing access to resources for systems development, such as subsidies.

9.2 Community Energy and Energy Access Challenges in Malawi

Social development depends on having energy access, including both access to electricity and fuels (Casati et al., 2023). In Malawi, the access rate to electricity (14.2% in 2021, and one of the lowest in the world) hinders people’s well-being and livelihood opportunities (ESMAP, 2021). The rates of access become dismal when considering only the rural population (5.6% in 2021) (SEA4ALL, 2021). The challenge of accessing electricity is compounded by the challenge of accessing clean fuels because only 2% of the population has reliable access to clean fuels (ESMAP, 2021). This means that almost all of the Malawian population depends on firewood and charcoal for heating and cooking (NCS, 2017), with a direct impact on the health and well-being of communities in both rural and urban areas and high rates of deforestation that threaten the ecosystems of the country. In Malawi, the trade-offs between energy access and ecosystem health raise complex challenges for the delivery of energy justice that any thinking of transition needs to consider (Grant et al., 2021).

The energy sector is characterized by low electricity generation capacity, estimated at about 522.55 MW from all installed units, with the national generation utility, EGENCO, supplying 441.55 MW and two solar-independent power producers contributing an additional 81 MW (JCM, 2022). Approximately 88% of the total electricity supplied by EGENCO is from hydropower stations cascaded along the Shire River, a situation that is considered very risky, for example, in the case of drought or flooding (EGENCO, 2023). EGENCO has faced several setbacks, including the damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Ana that paralyzed its 129 MW hydropower plant at Kapichira Power Station in 2022. EGENCO’s ambitious expansion plans were halted once again by cyclone Freddy in 2023, but it has recently been energized by solar investments (in November 2023, EGENCO began a new 10-megawatt Solar Power Project in the township Salima), in line with its 2023–2038 Strategic Plan to increase power generation capacity and diversifying power sources. Low generation capacity is compounded by limited transmission and distribution facilities and, subsequently, frequent power outages.

9.2.1 Histories of Energy and Community in Malawi

Before independence, the energy developmental initiatives in Malawi were mostly introduced by white missionaries who arrived in Malawi from different countries, especially Britain. Missionaries also led the development of the first energy schemes and decentralized systems in the early twentieth century). For example, a missionary-led project in the Matandani Adventist Mission in Neno (Mission to Matandani, 2021) a micro-hydropower system with 28 kW installed capacity, supplied power to the entire mission, including staff houses, school premises and offices, for more than three decades (MCEM, 2015). This, like other similar systems, fell into disrepair after the departure of the missionaries from the district due to a lack of proper management and maintenance.

However, the establishment of public utilities during the colonial and post-independence periods moved attention away from off-grid systems, and attention to community energy waned. In Malawi, the need for electricity to access electric appliances such as phones, radios and TVs pushed and motivated communities to find their own ways of generating and accessing electricity in diverse ways from solar home systems to micro-hydropower plants. This interest has offered opportunities for investment to international donors and civil society organizations that have seen community energy as opening a new realm for development interventions.

In many countries, such as for example, the Netherlands or Germany, community projects have garnered attention because of their potential to address growing climate change concerns while reducing household energy expenses (Dóci & Vasileiadou, 2015). In Malawi, this is taken to extremes: Malawian communities have been pushed to be energy-creative, resilient and independent by finding ways to generate their own electricity for home consumption and productive use. This is the case of the Kavuzi Pico hydro schemes, where several households have managed to procure and instal pico hydro systems just to meet the most basic household energy needs (cooking and heating are often excluded). Such pico systems are constructed with locally available resources by local artisans from their area. Some organizations have also promoted energy access through community-led energy kiosks (Galichon & Payen, 2017). These provide phone and solar battery charging services and lend solar lanterns at a small fee. For example, the Renew’N’Able Malawi (RENAMA) Rural Off-Grid Energy Kiosks project was launched in 2012 in two districts in the southern region of Malawi, Phalombe and Thyolo.¹ These projects have mainly targeted low-income households, especially in areas where the grid has not arrived, but they often have secondary impacts in neighbouring areas in terms of facilitating the spread of technology alongside new imaginations of energy futures.

Pilot community energy projects, however, took place in an unregulated space. In 2004, the Malawian government implemented six pilot off-grid solar hybrid mini-grids in six districts across Malawi co-funded by local governments. These six mini-grids, with an installed capacity of 20 kW to 25 kW, were designed to supply electricity to households within a one km radius. However, many of these projects were abandoned due to poor management and lack of maintenance and funding. The top-down approach to these projects meant that true community ownership could not be achieved, even when community-based committees were formed to handle the day-to-day administration.

9.2.2 Current Regulatory Landscape for Community Energy

Today, most actors in the energy sector recognize that community energy plays an important role in diversification, complementing the significantly larger investment capacity of EGENCO and independent private producers. A conducive regulatory framework has facilitated investments in community energy. Community energy systems have been a common fixture of the energy landscape since 2006, ranging from micro-grids to mini-grids and almost exclusively powered by renewables: solar PV, wind power, hydropower and hybrid systems. The 2018 National Energy Policy aims to provide a guiding framework for increased access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, efficient and modern energy for all sectors and every person in the country (GoM, 2018). It encourages community-level electricity generation and commits government funds to develop rural off-grid generation projects (Eales & Unyolo, 2018).

The 2004 Malawi Electricity Act defines a mini-grid as a system that generates electricity and supplies electricity to a local community with a maximum capacity of 5 MW. Mini-grids are either connected to the main grid or off-grid, and they are confined to a delimitated area to which they provide electricity. This definition is rooted in the concept of communities’ self-production, which is thought to reduce external dependency to facilitate both energy access and security since household energy security depends on having an uninterrupted availability of energy or electricity at an affordable price (Chirp & Jewell, 2014). The 2017 Renewable Energy Strategy puts mini-grids at the centre of the country’s vision for the energy sector. It proposes the establishment of Community Energy Service Companies and collaborations with non-governmental organizations such as Malawi Community Energy. The 2017 National Charcoal Strategy promotes the use of alternative fuels and puts Community Development at the heart of the development of alternatives that can help halt deforestation. These regulatory instruments have raised the profile of mini-grids and community energy, have helped recognize them as central to the energy mix and have supported the redirection of investment to these projects, although the development of projects has been fragmented. There is also room for reconceptualizing community energy from a broader perspective, as energy communities; a perspective that emphasizes communities’ claims to gain energy sovereignty beyond the capacity of generating electricity (for example, through community-based management of fuels and energy needs).

In addition, some regulatory instruments have been directed towards facilitating the implementation process of mini-grids. The Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority works hand in hand with the Malawi Bureau of Standards to ensure standards compliance in the provision of energy services in the country and, thus, has a strong influence on the implementation of community energy. In July 2020, MERA adopted a Regulatory Framework for Mini-Grids, which recognizes the wide diversity of governance arrangements that enable mini-grids proposing five ‘acceptable ownership arrangements’: community-based either as a Trust or by cooperative associations, public, private, private–public partnership and hybrid. In addition, the Framework gives communities a mandate to participate in the development of electricity tariffs, for example, ensuring these tariffs are affordable for them.

9.2.3 The Rural Electrification Program

The government of Malawi government developed the Malawi Rural Electrification Program (MAREP), following the adoption of the Rural Electrification Act by the Malawi Parliament in 2004.² MAREP aims to provide electricity to rural commercial centres not connected to the electricity grid through various energy options such as solar, hydro and wind, whether they are off-grid or on-grid. The Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM), a state-owned power transmission and distribution company established in the year 1984, has the mandate to roll out the MAREP program by extending the national grid network to rural communities across the country. The Ministry of Energy, Natural Resources and Mining, EGENCO and Independent Power Producers are supposed to support ESCOM in this electrification work (Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1

Institutions and regulations that support the Malawi Rural Electrification Program

MAREP is funded by an energy levy of around 4.5% of energy sales made available to the Rural Electrification Fund (DoE, 2009). The program is being carried out in phases, which depend on the availability of funds. As of November 2023, eight phases of the MAREP program have been completed, and the ninth phase is underway. In this period, ESCOM has electrified more than 108 rural commercial centres (ESCOM, 2023). Despite these efforts and the modest increases in electrification rates, Malawi still faces an enormous energy access challenge.

The government acknowledges that improving access to electricity in rural communities through grid extension may be too slow to deliver universal energy access beyond 2030, especially due to a lack of funding. Decentralized energy systems have thus a key role to play in the electrification of rural communities (GoM, 2018). Simpler technologies and nimble systems have facilitated the development of off-grid systems that involve communities in the planning and implementation of energy systems and facilitate community ownership. In Malawi, this strategy may be vital for hard-to-reach areas, especially rural communities that are far from the power grid (Alexandros, 2021).

These efforts, while positive, are not sufficient. The funding gap in energy infrastructure development in Malawi is estimated at US $2.5 billion to increase electricity generation to 1,200 MW (doubling the current 441.95 MW) and connect 1.2 million homes (MoNRENM, 2019). By this calculation, a thriving off-grid sector would require at least US$ 130 of investment funds before 2030. Investment alone will also require the active participation of all stakeholders, especially private investors, communities and civil society, to deliver universal energy access.

9.3 Community Energy in Practice: Five Projects in Malawi

By working together on off-grid initiatives in Malawi, communities, in partnership with NGOs and private actors, are advancing access to energy in rural communities. Governance arrangements are highly variable: some of the off-grid initiatives are fully owned and managed by the communities through electricity village committees with the help of the chiefs. The most frequent challenges with these off-grid systems, which contribute to unsustainability, are thought to be a lack of maintenance and unreasonable, cost-effective tariffs (Eales & Unyolo, 2018).

This section covers the results from the assessment of various community energy systems (CES) initiatives implemented in Malawi by different stakeholders in the energy sector. Both primary and secondary data regarding these case studies were gathered through direct interviews and desk research, respectively. A total of 315 households connected to the mini-grids were surveyed to gain insights into their energy usage patterns, as well as the benefits and challenges they encounter in accessing electricity from CES mini-grids. Additionally, interviews were conducted with at least 5 CES operators or managers at the visited CES sites to comprehend the diverse best practices employed by CES projects throughout Malawi. The selection of these case study sites was based on the accessibility of the site, system size, and the number of beneficiaries involved in each project. Analysis is still ongoing, but this chapter offers a first comparative overview of the implementation of the projects in context, attending to the focus on productive use, the involvement of the community and the main challenges identified in the interviews.

9.3.1 CARD Mini-grids and Kiosks

Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD) is a humanitarian, church-based NGO running solar off-grid programs in four locations: Nyamvuwu and Chimombo in Nsanje, and Oleole and Mwalija in Chikwawa. The project targets 20,000 beneficiaries, including women and children in four of its mini-grids and kiosks sites. These solar off-grid systems were designed to reduce poverty and increase resilience in the target areas by providing electricity for productive uses. All the systems were commissioned in 2019 and are still in operation today, except for the Oleole mini-grid, which was damaged by floods in 2021 (Fig. 9.2).

Fig. 9.2

Mwalija solar mini-grid

The project was funded by the European Union as part of the Sustainable Energy for Rural Communities project (SE4RC), with an initial investment of ca. $840,000. SE4RC was a collaboration between Practical Action, HIVOS and Environment Africa. SE4RC also set up seven energy kiosks to promote and improve access to clean and affordable energy for low-income households in grid-hard-to-reach areas. SE4RC strategy was to train community members to constitute Community Energy Service Companies (CEOSCs) that can become legal entities to access funds and provide sustainable services to the local communities. These CEOSCs own, operate and maintain the mini-grids. The CEOSC performs several functions, including minor maintenance on the Mini-grid system under the supervision of the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authorities.

The connection fee for these mini-grids requires the user customer to commit an amount of approximately $25.00, plus meeting the cable wiring costs, which include procurement of electrical wires. These energy systems adopted the pay-as-you-go business model to collect revenue from users connected to the system. However, their vending systems are no longer operative due to a system server problem, which required further investments of at least $1000 to get the vending system up and running. After the vending system stopped working, CEOSCs established a flat rate of about $3 monthly per household. Collected revenue is used to run the mini-grid and procure equipment, such as cables and new household connections with some additional funds used for community initiatives.

9.3.2 Sitolo Solar Mini-grid

The Sitolo solar mini-grid in the village of Sitolo, Mchinji district, is one of the first of its kind in Malawi. The installation was implemented by Community Energy Malawi (CEM) in 2019 after receiving a $435,000 investment from UNDP. This mini-grid generates 80 kWp of electricity and operates 24 hours a day without any backup diesel generator. It provides electricity to 1500 households.

CEM owns, maintains and operates the mini-grid. Each household pays a $30 connection fee. A big inspiration for the project was the Mulanje Electricity Generation Agency (MEGA) mini-grid (see below and Chapter 10) and, like MEGA, it operates as a social enterprise focusing on making electricity available and affordable to the community/target market by minimizing prices. To ensure the mini-grid is sustainable, CEM employed an experienced technician to oversee system maintenance, troubleshooting and on-site technical supervision.

9.3.3 Bondo Mini-grid

Bondo Mini-grid includes several small hydroelectric power stations built along the Lichenya River. These power plants are located in Bondo Village, Mulanje District, in the southern part of Malawi, and have been operational since 2012. The project was initiated by the Mulanje Conservation Trust to address the problem of deforestation around Mulanje Mountain. The funding for the mini-grid infrastructure was provided by the European Union, the Scottish government and the government of Malawi.

Subsequently, Mulanje Electricity Generation Agency (MEGA) was established as a business entity to manage the mini-grid as a social enterprise. MEGA became the first independent power producer in Malawi to obtain a power generation and distribution licence from the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority. During the first phase of the project, the local communities were involved in the installation process through job opportunities. The community also procured land for system installation but the land for the transmission lines also required consultation with traditional leaders. During the trial phase, twelve houses were connected to the grid. This sparked a demand from the entire community and a further integration of MEGA within the community.

In 2023, the mini-grid had connected over 2000 houses across three villages. Customers are connected to the grid through prepaid metres, with three tariff categories: commercial at $0. 9/kWh, residential at $0. 7/kWh, and social at $0. 4/kWh. Plans to expand the mini-grid to other villages depend on the availability of funds but advance apace.

9.3.4 Mthembanji Micro-grid

Mthembanji micro-grid was implemented as part of the Rural Energy Access and Social Enterprise (EASE) project in Dedza District, Central Malawi. EASE was a 1.3 million euro-funded Scottish Government project to promote decentralized energy access in Malawi via a partnership between the University of Strathclyde, Community Energy Malawi, United Purpose and the Centre for Water Sanitation, Health and Appropriate Technology Development (WASHTED) (Fig. 9.3).

Fig. 9.3

Mthembanji solar PV mini-grid

The project also operates under a social enterprise model. The micro-grid started operating in 2020. In 2022, at least 53 households, five tradespeople and two institutions were registered with the customer registration. There are different tariff categories to suit every level and type of energy demand in the Mthembanji community. One of the categories is the Banya package, which requires a customer to pay $4 per month. The other one, the Ufulu Bundle PAYG tariff, depends on the time, the type of usage and the usage level, while the Mudzi package is aimed at institutions and paid monthly.

The project employed two local agents trained in essential system maintenance, sales and customer relations. However, the EASE project budget covers part of the operation and maintenance costs, potentially raising the alarm about the system's sustainability beyond the funding period.

9.3.5 Chipopoma Mini Hydropower

Chipopoma is a community-based micro-hydropower mini-grid in the Rumphi district that supplies electricity to more than 120 houses with 1500 direct individual beneficiaries. The system also provides power to a nearby primary school, health centre and orphan care. The micro hydro power plant generates approximately 50 kW transmitted through an 11 kV medium voltage grid that is 3.5 km long. Distribution lines extend an additional 9.5 km at 230 V. The idea to harness hydroelectric power from the Mantchewe waterfalls began in 2015 when a village resident mobilized the community and sourced funding from a private business, the Mushroom Lodge, to procure PVC pipes for penstocks. The turbine and generator were constructed and assembled locally using locally available resources. Following the success of this initiative, the community energy project secured additional funding from UNEP to instal a standard transformer and transmission and distribution lines to connect more households.

The plant provides energy for ca. 100 households. The hydropower plant is operated by a group of managers who regularly consult the community through the institution of the Board, with which all decisions are consulted. The majority of the Board members are women. The project plans to expand the generation capacity to 120 kW to accommodate more households and facilitate revenue generation.

9.4 Productive Uses of Electricity

The first question asked comparatively was the importance of productive uses of energy in each site. Productive Uses of Electricity (PUE) add value to electricity through income-generating activities. Harnessing PUEs is a strategy to add demand to energy systems and make them financially viable while also expanding livelihood opportunities within a community (Vivien et al., 2019). Providing rural communities access to sustainable electricity significantly impacts community and household economies (Peters & Sievert, 2016). The experiences of community energy in Malawi show that they foster economic activities, ranging from small to large business enterprises.

For example, a key sector of interest is subsistence agriculture, still the rural population's primary livelihood source. However, low access to electricity reduces the opportunity to increase the value of agricultural produce.

In all projects visited, one common PUE was refrigeration to facilitate the sale of cold drinks, frozen food and fresh fish. The availability of electricity enabled shops to extend their opening hours and increase sales (Fig. 9.4). Hairdressing businesses, including barber shops and salons also used electricity. Sometimes electricity is used for domestic activities that also facilitate businesses such as phone and car battery charging. Other times electricity enables industrial manufacturing, for example, the fabrication and manufacture of building materials like window and door frames.

Fig. 9.4

Using refrigeration services in Chipopoma

The type and size of the system and its location conditions the PUEs possible in each site. For example, maize mills were not commonly found in CES powered by solar PV because they tend to have limited generation capacity. The Sitolo Mini-grid had a maize mill and an oil refinery plant that operated on a prescribed schedule to regulate the electricity demand. CES sites in Chikwawa and Nsanje, Nyamvuwu, and Malija, had successful irrigation schemes serving at least 250 beneficiaries. These schemes have contributed to improved intercropping practices, thereby increasing food security and income levels. Our comparative assessment suggests that electricity has brought a host of benefits to these communities apart from household electrification, mainly through PUEs, but that PUEs are also fundamental to the constitution of community energy and, therefore, need to be put at the centre of its development.

9.5 Community Participation

The success of community energy depends on the active participation of the community. The most difficult aspects to negotiate with the community are the financial sustainability of the project and its governance. With regard to the financial sustainability of community energy, all projects require communities to show a willingness to pay for energy services, but this may not always be readily accepted. A participatory process can help negotiate fair tariffs between communities and system operators (which may overlap but are rarely the same). The same process may be deployed to engage the community in the rehabilitation of the systems and day-to-day management.

The governance needs of community energy pose their own challenges. In Malawi, community energy is often owned by the communities to various degrees. However, what ‘ownership’ means in practice varies hugely and depends on various factors, such as the business model, how it was introduced to the community, and the decisions made by the community regarding its operation.

The five projects visited show that full ownership by the communities entails strategic leadership to day-to-day management. For example, the four CARD solar mini-grids are fully owned and operated by the communities, whose members have taken responsibility for making new connections, expanding the grid and recruiting additional expertise. The Bondo community had concerns about managing their community energy system because they had unrealistic expectations that electricity should be provided free of charge. These unrealistic expectations were generated during the introduction of the project. In contrast, the Mthembanji mini-grid, which is owned and operated by United Purpose, does not plan to hand it over to the community due to the complexity of community ownership in relation to the business model used by the community energy system.

Regardless of the level of ownership, two features are common to all the projects to guarantee purchase by the community. One of those features was the presence of a village electricity committee responsible for each energy system. These committees are chaired by traditional leaders or chiefs and serve to control and address any community grievances regarding the services provided by the community energy systems. Chiefs are often involved in decision-making processes related to the systems because they are thought to represent the voice of the community (an assumption that merits interrogation from an intersectional perspective).

The other feature that makes participation in community projects successful is the involvement of the communities in providing land for the installation of the community energy systems. For example, in Mthembanji village, the community granted part of the land while the other remaining was leased through the Ministry of Lands, with consultations and approvals from traditional local leaders. In the other four sites, land was given by the community in consultation with the local leaders.

9.6 Challenges to the Development and Maintenance of Community Energy

The most common challenge for all these projects is their sustainability over time. Most community energy projects are actively supported and promoted in the initial years of funding. However, the continued provision of service after funding stops is unwarranted. Managers in all visited sites mentioned funding as the major challenge faced which hindered the expansion and maintenance of their projects.

Tariff revenue is often insufficient to meet community energy's daily running costs. For example, the CARD Mini-grids project faced financial and management challenges after transferring ownership to the community to handle the project's day-to-day management. The local electricity committee responsible for executing the project was trained on the best practices for its implementation. However, shortcomings in management were discovered along the way, specifically in the misuse of funds. The committee has been unable to fund further household connections because they lack the necessary funds to acquire materials, and they could not face any technical difficulties, breakdown of services, or system failures with the existing resources. In Chipopoma, the management team has gone on weeks or even months without services as they tried to put together the funds to repair the network.

Many managers emphasized that communities felt deeply a lack of technical expertise. While local technicians from the community may have expertise, complex equipment failures require specialized knowledge to repair. In the case of the Oleole mini-grid in the Chikwawa district, floods damaged the inverter and charge controllers. The trained CESOES lacked the expertise to fix this equipment and hired an external expert to repair the system, which further challenged their available funds. One inverter for the Mthembanji mini-grid had been nonfunctional for months because the local community members lacked the expertise to repair it.

Many of these challenges stem from the fact that despite the national-level efforts, these community energy projects depend on inadequate policies and regulatory frameworks. According to operators, the policy environment does not support community energy projects to thrive. Collaboration with ESCOM on rural electrification or grid integration is rare. In the case of the Nyamvuwu Mini-grid, the MAREP program through ESCOM had encroached on the area, and this has made the customers shift their connections from the mini-grid to the grid. While this may be good news for the customers (who may find the grid more reliable or more conventional) it represents a disaster for a stretched community energy project that depends on meagre tariffs. Despite the celebration of community energy, national policies do not reveal key details, such as for example, how can independent community energy projects access governmental funds. whether CES has the right to access funds from the rural electrification fund. None of the projects visited had received governmental funds.

Establishing effective revenue collection methods in mini-grid systems can present challenges if proper processes are not defined. For instance, in CARD mini-grids, where the vending system stopped working due to server challenges and in Chipopoma, which lacks an automated vending solution, collecting monthly revenue becomes difficult as some customers may not pay their electricity bills. In Bondo, customers must walk to the operator's office to purchase electricity tokens, with a waiting time of one to two days for tokens to be available. A similar situation exists in Sitolo and Mthembanji, where customers also walk to offices to buy tokens, requiring potentially long distances to be travelled. Across all sites, customers cannot purchase electricity through mobile money or banking services.

These insights have been summarized in Tables 9.1 and 9.2. While Table 9.1 explains the factors that enable community energy in Malawi, Table 9.2 turns attention to the challenges faced in these projects. Table 9.1 demonstrates that these projects depend on a combination of external support (i.e., funding) and the integration of the project into the local community, particularly through productive uses of energy. However, most of the external support has come from international development organizations and NGOs. The intervention of the government along the lines of existing policies could mobilize public funding in the form of grants to fund the next generation of community energy projects but also to support existing projects facing hardship on their road towards sustainability.

Table 9.2 in contrast provides an overview of the diverse challenges that these projects face, in the technical arena, the availability of materials through the supply chain and the numerous uncertainties- some related to natural disruptions beyond the control of the operators. Community participation, ownership and a number governance structure may all help to support these valuable projects over time.

Table 9.1 Key aspects in the delivery of community energy in Malawi

Table 9.2 Challenges to the implementation of community energy in Malawi

9.7 Conclusion

Several important lessons must be learned from community energy systems in Malawi. The government policies promote off-grid renewable energy but lack clarity and specific support for community projects. This chapter suggests a need for a comprehensive review of energy policies to accommodate community energy systems to benefit from the rural electrification fund and other government subsidies, such as user-targeted subsidies.

Based on the empirical data, the study found that technical training was provided to some community energy system operators by the government through the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority, Department of Energy Affairs, Mzuzu University and other stakeholders. This training positively enhanced the maintenance challenges faced by community energy. However, financial support is needed for many projects that have fewer customers and are in their early implementation stage. Promoting community stewardship by involving traditional leaders has been found to be an effective approach, especially in rural settings, but their role in shaping the process of social inclusion needs to be interrogated. Transferring full ownership of community energy to the communities requires careful evaluation and planning to achieve and particularly, avoiding the generation of unrealistic expectations.

The most important factor overlooked in the operation of community energy is the resilience of different projects and how they respond to uncertainties and shocks (see Chapter 2). Resilience can be incorporated into project design with the objective of preventing system failures. Better environmental assessments can also help community energy projects to endure external disruptions.

One advantage of focusing on PUEs is the possibility of maximizing electricity usage during off-peak hours, a strategy that can help improve revenues and project survival rates. Other strategies include encouraging and promoting productive use of energy through cooperatives, such as irrigation farming or small-scale agro-processing. Community energy systems that have been well established have the potential to contribute meaningfully to rural development in Malawi. Sustainable community energy can help drive economic and social development in underserved rural areas.