BioEnergy Powering Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods Enhancement- BEPeARLe

According to the International Energy Agency, 770 million people worldwide do not have access to electricity today, primarily in Asia and Africa. Energy insecurity is one of the biggest problems in rural areas because poor grid infrastructure and connections are a significant contributor to the lack of access to power, which impedes socioeconomic development.

Rural electrification will not only spur economic growth but also narrow the urban-rural divide. How can we address energy infrastructure on a budget when high-capacity batteries are (mostly) prohibitively expensive? Solar photovoltaics (PV) is already a tried-and-true method of producing electricity off-grid.

Our vision is to provide all three components of the energy trilemma - affordability, reliability, and sustainability of clean energy access - to marginalized communities in five target countries -- Botswana, Cambodia, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia, via our Agrivoltaic Solar - Biomass Gasification - Biogas Hybrid system. Mandulis, through its zero-waste circular economy model, generates clean energy solutions from waste, enabling smallholder farmers to access clean electricity for powering their households and businesses, clean cooking fuel, energy-saving cookstoves, agricultural processing services, and soil enhancers.

The uniqueness of our circular economy model, leveraging on and revalorizing residues and byproducts of the process, makes all these goods and services affordable, reliable, and sustainable for smallholder farmers, having a great positive impact on poverty alleviation, climate resilience, and biodiversity protection.

This project will demonstrate the economic benefits that can be achieved by integrating agriculture and energy. As a core business objective of Mandulis Energy, bringing these two sectors together will foster cross-sectoral engagement, stimulate business opportunities, and partnerships between smallholder farmers in the targeted areas with larger economic players.

It will also develop locally the skills necessary to put these multifunctional technologies into use and keep them maintained. To disseminate knowledge, comprehend end-user requirements, and develop a supply-chain integration strategy, we will work directly with local communities, energy developers, and SMEs in all target countries as we implement: 12 PV - biomass gasification - digestion systems in Uganda (6 sites - 100 kW, 1 site - 500 kW), Botswana (1 sites - 100 kW), Nigeria (1 site - 100 kW), Zambia (1 site - 100 kW) and Cambodia (1 site - 100 kW), generating low carbon, reliable, affordable and productive renewable energy to drive post-harvest processing, clean cooking fuel and biofertilisers.