LEAP-RE (Long-term EU-Africa research and innovation Partnership on Renewable Energy) is a Horizon 2020 EU-funded project aimed at creating a lasting partnership among African and European stakeholders in the field of renewable energies, with a quadruple-helix approach that involves governments, research and academia, private sector, and civil society. Impact will be sought by creating a framework, methodology, and cooperation model, since the project aspires to reduce fragmentation, by aligning existing bilateral and multilateral frameworks, in order to establish and implement research, innovation, and capacity-building activities.
Within LEAP-RE, the University of Pisa is involved in WP.13 “SETADISMA” (Sustainable Energy Transition and Digitalization of Smart Mini-Grids for Africa), implemented in Algeria, Kenya and Rwanda and devoted to foster rural electrification. This project aims at developing a comprehensive analysis of mini-grids in African rural areas to provide a renewable-energy smart-grid concept that supports the local context development. Specifically, the main objective of SETADISMA is to develop and validate new modelling approaches for energy assessment, technology development, digitalization and socio-economic aspects with the support of more than 30 case studies scattered across the African partner countries. In this way, such approaches can be tested in terms of reliability, robustness, and replicability to lead to the development and design of more resilient mini-grid systems. Along with the research activities on technological components and systems and energy planning activities, a fully integrated capacity building and dissemination action is performed to guarantee the continuous exchange and transfer of knowledge and experience among the partners of the project and local stakeholders.
The University of Pisa is specifically involved, with a budget of 165 k€ (20 PM), in Work Packages “Optimal design and operation of microgrids” and “Business models”. In this framework, our researchers are committed to conceive and test innovative techno-economic criteria to optimize the size and the operation of hybrid mini-grids composed by renewable sources and energy storage devices, also taking into account the uncertainty associated with long-term variations of energy uses and intensity and with the ageing of assets.
Coordinator: LGI CONSULTING (LGI), Paris
Other Partners: https://www.leap-re.eu/partners/
Start date: 01/10/2020
End date: 31/01/2026
Duration: 63 months
Call title: LC-SC3-JA-5-2020
Unipi role: PARTNER
WEBSITE: https://www.leap-re.eu/setadisma/
