Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is home to 75% of the world’s unelectrified population, and approximately 500 million of these live in rural areas. Off-grid mini-grids are being deployed on a large scale to address the region’s electrification inequalities. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of the research on the off-grid renewable mini-grids in SSA. The study covers the current status of the level of deployment of off-grid mini-grids. It also reviews multi-criteria decision-making models for optimizing engineering, economics, and management interests in mini-grid siting and design in SSA. The statuses of financing, policy, and tariffs for mini-grids in SSA are also studied. Finally, the current status of energy justice research in respect of mini-grids in SSA is reviewed. The study shows the important role of decentralized renewable technologies in the electrification of SSA’s rural population. Within a decade since 2010, the rural electrification rate of SSA has increased from 17% to 28%, and 11 million mini-grid connections are currently operational. Despite these gains, the literature points to several injustices related to the present model by which SSA’s renewable mini-grids are funded, deployed, and operated. Hence, several recommendations are provided for the effective application of the energy justice framework (EJF) for just and equitable mini-grids in SSA.

Safety is of utmost essence in the aviation sector, both on-ground and in the air. Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK) commonly referred to as jet fuel is one of the major resources of the aviation sector, contributing significantly to the operating cost of an airline. Flight safety is a top-notch requirement in air transportation management. Jet fuel quality affects flight safety, and this makes it mandatory to ensure that, at all points in the jet A-1 aviation fuel supply chain, the jet fuel is contamination free and on-spec. Jet fuel quality is determined via various mandatory Joint Inspection Group (JIG) based quality analysis test procedures; both baseline and extensive lab tests by third party labs. Acceptable parameter range has been established for each jet fuel property, the electrical conductivity of jet A-1 fuel must be between 50 and 600 pS/m and the density at 15 °C must be between 0.775 and 0.840 g/cm3. Beyond this range, the fuel is deemed off-spec and unsafe for into-plane fuelling operations. This data article presents daily jet fuel test records for jet-A1 fuel. The dataset contains the date of the test, the conductivity, the specific gravity at ambient temperature, the converted specific gravity at 15 °C, and the temperature of the jet fuel sample under study. All the tests were performed at standard laboratory conditions using approved and certified equipment. The dataset provides an opportunity for developing a predictive model that can be used for jet fuel properties prediction on a given day, based on previous data trends and analysis using data pattern recognition, as an indication of the variation of jet fuel properties with daily weather variation.

Food is a basic necessity of life. It is the means by which man is nourished and strengthened to carry out his daily activities. The need for food for the upkeep of man has placed agriculture at the helm of man’s affairs on earth. With a rapidly increasing population on earth, man has invented newer and innovative ways to cultivate crops. This cultivation is mainly concentrated in rural areas of countries around the world; but with the massive urbanization happening in the world today; it is becoming increasingly difficult to have enough agricultural produce that will cater for the massive population. Taking Nigeria as a case study, the increased urbanization has placed a massive demand on land, energy and water resources within urban areas of the country. Majority of the food consumed in the urban areas is cultivated in the rural areas. This system however requires longer transportation times from rural areas to urban areas which lead to contamination and spoilage in many instances. This research paper provides a solution in which food crops can be cultivated easily in urban areas by planting in vertically stacked layers in order to save space and use minimal energy and water for irrigation.

Huge quantities of harvest wastes that are generated from agricultural practices at every farming season in Nigeria are not put into significant use. As an attempt towards adopting these abundant by-products as bioenergy resources for electricity generation, yearly quantities of both cocoa and kolanut harvest residues were estimated in this study. Hygroscopic natures and moisture contents of the two, and their blends, were also analyzed and compared. It was estimated that approximately 681,000 tons and 90,000 tons of cocoa and kolanut husks respectively, are produced in the country annually. While the proximate analyses showed that the sample made of 100% cocoa waste had the least volatile matter and moisture contents in addition to having highest fixed ash and fixed carbon contents, the reverse was the case with the sample made of 100% kolanut waste composition. From the ultimate analyses, however, the latter appears to possess the best characteristic (highest hydrogen and least oxygen contents), but its highest nitrogen content is a pointer to its exhibition of poor thermal property. The gross calorific contents of the samples were, therefore employed for definitive determination of their thermoelectric potentials and these gave higher heating values of 15.19 MJ/kg and 13.87 MJ/kg respectively, with the blends having their values within this range in proportionality to the mass percentage of kolanut husk in the blends. In addition to the two wastes exhibiting good energy characteristics, the study concludes that their blending offers benefit of reduction in ash content. At the optimal blend of equal composition of the two materials (50%CPH/50%KPH), it was estimated that 29,000 MW of electricity is accruable from the wastes.

Cost implication of Line Voltage variation on Three Phase Induction Motor operation