Renewable energy for agrifood chains

Book excerpt: This report presents a structured approach to identify and estimate the market size of specific renewable energy technologies that have the potential to be deployed across specific stages of the agri-food chains. More specifically, the methodology first analyses the countries’ value chains and aggregates them into similar agri-food groups when possible. Once the groupings are defined, the value chains are mapped out and the energy requirements across the different stages of the value chain are defined. Specific renewable energy options are then identified for each value chain based on the energy demand and the process for which energy is required. This structure then feeds into the calculation of the overall market potential by chain and the renewable energy type identified. For this report, the methodology is illustrated with the case of solar energy technologies that have the potential to be deployed across the agriculture value chains in Rwanda.