“The issue is, if cell phone towers become anchors for microgrids, the banks will pay for the cell phone tower and then local entrepreneurs will figure out ways to sort of build out that infrastructure and provide power,” said Peter Asmus, Principal Research Analyst at Navigant Research in a recent interview with AFKInsider. However, he adds that, “from what I’ve heard from vendors, cultural issues in a lot of parts of Africa are less community-oriented than, for example, India or some Asia-Pacific regions. It’s more sort of individualistic and so trying to get a community to collaborate and organize to build a microgrid has been difficult.”
