Ilaria Rosella Pagliaro With $3.7 million in funding, the REACH-PSM project is promoting solar energy in Africa through innovative, low-cost technologies.
©Swansea
The ambitious aim of the REACH-PSM project-he named Resilient Renewable Energy Access Through Community-Driven Holistic Development in Perovskite Solar Module Manufacturing-is to make Africa capable of locally producing solar panels with innovative and sustainable technology. The project has gained £3 million ($3.7 million) funding to establish perovskite solar module manufacturing in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, and Nigeria, following a community-driven and sustainable development model.
It will be led from the UK’s Swansea University in pursuit of ways in which solar energy is made available by innovative technologies that will be cost-reductive with minimal impacts on the environment compared to conventional panels. Not all of it is about the technology in the middle but equally about the local communities which are generally always left behind in technological changes and electricity access.
An international consortium for a local impact
REACH-PSM thus brings together in a single consortium universities and African renewable energy companies in a consortium of academic excellence combined with local expertise. The main participating universities are the Kenya-based Strathmore University and Egerton University, the Nigerian Federal University of Technology Owerri, and, from South Africa, Cape Town, North-West, and KwaZulu-Natal universities.
These academic institutions will collaborate intensely with private sector partners like Kenya’s Kijani Testing, Rwanda’s SLS Energy, and Nigeria’s Hinkley Recycling. In fact, their collaborative efforts in developing new business models have gone to the extent of creating a demonstration facility that will serve as a model for the local production of next-generation solar panels.
That reach is monumental on a continent where over 600 million people are still without access to electricity. It uses solar energy to alleviate energy poverty by creating new economic avenues for locals.
Perovskite and circular economy: innovation with a purpose
The centerpiece of the technology in this project is perovskite solar panels-a relatively new technology with promising prospects for the sector. Compared to conventional silicon panels, perovskite modules are cheaper to produce, use less energy in their production process, and are suitable for more sustainable modes of production.
Matthew Davies, Project Lead, and UNESCO Chair of Sustainable Technologies, highlighted the importance of taking the approach toward a circular economy approach:
Among the most relevant objectives is designing efficient treatments for the panels’ end of life, thus assuring as low waste levels as possible while increasing material reusing by means of recycling and regeneration.”
In this manner, the step would mean much more than environmental sustainability but should place Africa as a manufacturing point in the Global Solar Energy scenario. Making photovoltaic modules is therefore a strong approach toward technological independence, with added values, such as an increase in the local content rate.
Davies further added that the project is not about technological innovation but also about building local skill sets, creating job opportunities, and increasing the economic resilience of the participating regions.
A step toward energy equity
It builds on previous Swansea-led programmes, such as the TEA@SUNRISE programme, which works to stimulate photovoltaic module production in low-income countries in Africa, Asia, and the Indo-Pacific. Both projects form part of the UK government’s Ayrton Challenge programme, designed to support the transition to global clean energy.
Living in a world where most of the renewable technologies remain unreachable for many economies because of their high costs, perovskite represents a real route to democratising solar energy. This project underlines the potential of Africa-not just as a resource-rich continent but also as a hub for technological and social development through the unique blend of sustainability, innovation, and circular economy principles it uses.
