Electric Mobility: A Primer

This course is specifically curated for graduates and recent graduates of engineering streams to get a basic understanding of electric mobility. This course is a part of a series of courses and is aimed to complementing the regular learning that the students receive as a part of their formal education.  The course heavily draws upon material that is developed under the SOLUTIONSplus project (https://www.solutionsplus.eu/) funded by the European Commission.  The material is curated for the target audience. Upon completion of the course, participants will gain insights into: 

  1. The importance of electric mobility
  2. The various roles of stakeholders in electric mobility
  3. The factors that need to be considered while designing for e-mobility options
  4. Various funding opportunities available for implementing e-mobility

This course content was curated for university graduates under a project jointly implemented by the German Development Agency (GIZ), PEM Motion and the Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI).

Who is this course for?

This course is specifically designed for current students and recent graduates of undergraduate programs. The course expects the students to have some technical background in Engineering streams, esp. Mechanical, Electrical or Transportation engineering.

About the project

The Rwandan electric mobility sector is rapidly growing, and many times skilled workforce is often rare. This has already reached a point where workshops and garages cannot service and maintain electric vehicles (EVs) and Hybrid EVs (HEVs) due to the need for more skilled professionals. Accordingly, more must be done to support the current businesses in the short term. By focusing on skill development in the electric mobility sector, Rwanda can become a leader in the African continent in the transition and adaption to sustainable mobility.
GIZ, UEMI and PEM Motion are fostering a pilot project to achieve precisely this: a more skilled workforce through inclusive and quality job creation in e-mobility in Rwanda. Throughout the next months, we will work with private companies that require skilled personnel and public & private training institutions that offer related curriculums & vocational courses to derive an enabling, educative and exciting program that connects young, prosperous graduates with the country’s innovative e-mobility sector.

Clean cooking and waste to energy – SESA

This course will delve into clean cooking and waste to energy, unpacking the basic concepts of clean cooking, the technological options currently available and the key elements to consider when planning and setting up a clean cooking system.

The course aims to provide a simple yet technical basis for those interested in learning more about smart and green energy solutions. Experts from the SESA project have created this course giving particular attention to concrete cases and examples relevant to the African context to help understand how different energy alternatives work.

The course is made up of 10 lessons, each one comprising one short video, a list of further readings and a quiz to test the understanding of the content. Each lesson will focus on a specific topic, covering a fundamental element that makes clean cooking and waste-to-energy technologies successful. These include:

  1. Basic clean cooking concepts
  2. Treatment of organic waste: anaerobic digestion.
  3. Sourcing and production of waste to an energy system
  4. Technology options for clean cooking solutions
  5. Installation, operation, and maintenance of Biogas systems
  6. Installation, operation, and maintenance of efficient cook stoves
  7. Safety for clean cooking solutions
  8. Suitable condition for waste-to-energy installations
  9. Business models and delivery models for clean cooking solutions
  10. Open discussion

This is the second course in the SESA capacity building programme, which aims to close the knowledge gap around renewable and smart energy solutions.

The SESA capacity building programme consists of six courses, which dive into six specific technologies investigated by the SESA project to help participants understand what alternative energy sources exist and how they work. In addition to clean cooking, these technologies include solar energy, electric mobility, second-life EV batteries, smart microgrid & system integration and rural internet access.

What is the SESA Project?

Smart Energy Solutions for Africa (SESA) is a collaborative EU-funded project between the European Union and nine African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania) that aims at providing energy access technologies and business models that are easily replicable and generate local opportunities for economic development and social cohesion in Africa.

Over the course of this 4-year project (2021-2025), a variety of solutions will be investigated and tested in different contexts. Such contexts include decentralised renewable energies (solar photovoltaics), innovative energy storage systems including the use of second-life Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries, smart microgrids, waste-to-energy systems (biomass to biogas), climate-proofing, resilience and adaptation, and rural internet access.

Innovations will be co-created in living labs that the project has set up to foster the cooperation between consortium members, innovators and local communities, and tested in both urban and rural environments following a three tiers approach. Initial testing will be done at the demonstration site in Kenya (Katito and Homabay), then validated in Ghana, Malawi, Morocco and South Africa and finally replicated in Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania).