Kenyan Women Light Up Villages with Solar Power
by Denis Gathanju, Contributor
Published: July 13, 2010
Kenya -- Let there be light. And thanks to the efforts of rural women
in one of the most remote corners of the Kenyan republic, lights turn
on as night falls at the end of a sunny day.
Tucked away in the remote villages of Olando and Got Kaliech in rural
Kenya, residents in this poor outpost in south-western Kenya today
have light after darkness falls. The light is thanks to Phoebe
Jondiko, Joyce Matunga and Phoebe Akinyi, the three solar �women
engineers� who have literally switched on the lights in the two
villages with a view to lighting up more villages in the remote Gwassi
Division in Suba District.
Blessed with year-round sunshine, Kenya is quickly waking up to the
realization that it can successfully tap into one of the vast natural
resources on the planet � the sun. Solar energy has for a long time
remained largely untapped in Kenya due to a combination of factors
with the single biggest obstacle being the hugely expensive solar kits.
But with the Kenyan government desperately looking for new avenues
through which it can turn Kenya�s energy greener, this year it lowered
the importation taxes levied on solar energy kits so as to encourage
corporations and individuals to use solar to power domestic and
industrial operations.
Solar Energy Empowers Rural Women
Victor Ndiege is the project manager of Green Forest Social Investment
Trust (GFSIT), a Kisumu-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that
is geared towards empowering women in rural areas through the
provision of renewable power, easing domestic chores, especially when
night falls and helping village women come up with income generating
activities.
According to research conducted by GFSIT, village women spend between
Kenya Shillings (Kes) 850 and 1,200 [approximately US $10 to $15]
every month on lighting alone. The women, notes Ndiege, use various
sources such as paraffin and firewood to light up their homes after
dark and to cook food.
�This has negative effects on the environment as they have to cut down
trees for firewood, while paraffin poses health risks to the women and
their families on inhalation of the harmful fumes from paraffin
lamps,� said Ndiege. �In that case, we identified solar energy as the
most affordable alternative energy source that we could use in the
villages. We partnered with the Barefoot College in India, which
trains semi-illiterate rural women to fabricate, install and maintain
solar lighting systems in the villages.�
Ndiege said that the women acquired vital solar engineering skills
that they are currently applying in the remote villages of Olando and
Got Kaliech. Under the Village Solar Committees (VSCs) program,
village folks will contribute between Kes 500 and 800 [approximately
US $7 to 10] in monthly subscriptions from each household to keep the
program running.
�The village women have also started income generating activities that
include a posho mill that is powered by solar energy to generate some
income for the women groups and a small workshop where local youth can
gain skills and eke out a living while supporting the village solar
program as well,� explained Ndiege.
According to Ndiege, the GFSIT is importing a new batch of solar kits
from India to be installed in other villages within Gwassi Division.
This is largely to take advantage of the reduced importation taxes
levied on solar kits by the Kenyan government as well as a means
through which more rural villages can now switch on to solar energy.
Lighting Africa
Phoebe Jondiko, one of the women involved with the program, said that
the solar project is a welcome relief for the rural folks in her
village because its remote location and hilly terrain make it
difficult to access energy from the national grid system under the
Kenyan government-led initiative dubbed rural electrification program
(REP).
Currently, only 20 percent of Kenyan households are connected to the
national grid. Patrick Nyoike, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry
of Energy, said it is virtually impossible to connect every Kenyan
household to the national grid system by 2030 due to the huge capital
investments needed. This is in spite the fact that the Rural
Electrification Authority (REA), the government agency mandated to
connect rural areas to the national grid, has so far pumped more than
$552 million over the last four decades into the program.
Said Nyoike: �National power grid connections require huge capital
investments with the scattered nature of rural settlements that
require off grid stations making this unattainable in the near future.�
According to Zachary Ayieko, the CEO of REA, solar energy offers a
huge power potential for the nation since solar energy in Kenya could
potentially generate up to three times the current daily national grid
requirements. Because of this the REA has entered into a partnership
with the International Finance Corporation to spearhead a new
initiative called �Lighting Africa.�
Ayieko said that this ambitious project is currently running on a
pilot basis in Kenya and Ghana, with a view to lighting up more than
2.5 million households in the next two years and an estimated 250
million households across Africa.
Though the initial costs of a solar kit are higher as compared to
kerosene lamps, the overall cost of the solar kits is lower because
there are no operational costs attached to them.
�Prices range between $10 and $93 for the solar kits depending on
their capacity as compared to the monthly average of $10 spent by each
household on kerosene,� said Arthur Itote, the project manager at the
Lighting Africa Private Enterprise Partnership for Africa (LAPEPA).
In order to make the solar kits readily available and affordable to
the rural poor, LAPEPA is working on starting a microfinance business
model that will allow poor village folks make small payments over time
until they have fully paid off the kits.
Joyce Matunga says that the solar energy kits can also be used to
power irrigation pumps. This, she said, would be a big step forward as
the farm produce would then generate income for poor households and
the ripple effects across the villages will be poverty alleviation as
a long-term benefit.
The Barefoot College is located in Tilona, India and is the brainchild
of Indian-based social-entrepreneur Bunker Roy. This is the first time
the college is partnering with a Kenyan-based community organization.
The college has so far trained more than 100 semi-illiterate rural
women and electrified more than 5,500 households in about 72 remote
villages in 15 third-world countries.
And while Kenya is racing to adopt green energy technologies to power
its booming economy into a middle-income economy in less than 20
years� time, solar energy will play a pivotal role in Kenya�s green
energy policy. This has been exemplified not only in the solar energy
lighting program in rural Kenya, but in the new data center coming up
in Nairobi.
With Kenya being the regional ICT hub, the Kenya Data Networks (KDN),
a Nairobi-based internet service provider, has plans to build the
first ever solar powered data center in Nairobi. The data center will
be the only one of its kind in Africa. Building cost estimates are
around Kes 600 million [US$ 7.5 million].
According to CEO Kai Wulff, KDN is also planning to use solar energy
to power most of its digital villages spread in remote parts of the
country under the Green Solar Power initiative. Wulff said that the
initiative will be a two-pronged project that will take technology
closer to the village folks through the provision of fast and cheap
internet connections, while at the same time, providing cheap power to
power the rural ICT centers.
Denis Gathanju is a freelance journalist based in Africa.
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