Technical Assistance to the Rural Energy Agency of Tanzania - Final Report
The Rural Energy Agency’s Sustainable Solar Market Packages is a Government of Tanzania programme
Abstract
The Rural Energy Agency’s Sustainable Solar Market Packages (SSMP) is an on-going Government of Tanzania programme. It promotes the off-grid sector and advances distributed solar for public institutions and households in rural areas of Tanzania. SSMP was conceived to help build commercial markets for off-grid solar by a) bundling regional procurements into commercial packages that are bid out on a competitive basis; b) to introduce innovative subsidies to develop and improve affordability of the private Solar Home System (SHS) market; and c) to introduce a stronger focus on after-sales services and continued marketing. In its second phase, SSMP is now being implemented in 8 districts.
Rural Energy Agency (REA) requested UK Department for International Development and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency financial support to expand the performance grant portion of the SSMP 2 programme. DFID commissioned this assignment to review assumptions and likely impacts of the performance grant provided under SSMP 2 given the changes in the solar market, and to assess how much REA could save with alternative or modified approaches.
DFID hired African Solar Designs, Ltd. and Economic Consulting Associates through the Energy Africa Technical Assistance Facility as the TA Providers to support REA through a high level economic analysis of SSMP 2. This analysis will be used to inform and provide recommendations for future approaches that offer value for money and give support to the sector that reflects the ongoing evolution in solar markets.
This research is part of the ‘Technical Assistance Facility to Deliver Africa Energy Compacts’ programme.
Citation
Hankins, M; Kaijage, E; Barja, A; Hindrich, F (2017): Technical Assistance to the Rural Energy Agency in Tanzania; Evidence on Demand
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