Farming communities near Mt. Kenya are using hydropower and solar to create industries, improve crop marketing and combat climate change
KIBAE, Kenya (AlertNet) - For two communities farming the fertile lower slopes of Mount Kenya, producing electricity from a nearby waterfall was once just a dream.
But thanks to a local initiative backed by U.N. cash and know-how, it is now a reality that has brought not just cheap and climate-friendly power but new industries with jobs for women and youth, and an Internet link to help farmers get the best prices for their crops.
“The energy project has offered employments to many youths in these two villages,” said Jeremiah Wangombe, a 60-year-old farmer in Kibae, one of two towns in Kenya’s Central Province benefitting from the power project. “They work in the maize mill, poultry hatchery, fruit extracting plant, and at the community centre where locals get market information.”
The community power centre, inaugurated in 2008, is Kenya’s first hybrid zero-emission power centre, using a mix of hydropower and solar energy, and is an example of renewable energy projects that are gaining ground across Kenya as the country tries to cut its carbon emissions and deal with the effects of climate change.
GRASSROOTS EFFORT
Kibae and Kiangombe are located 150 km (100 miles) north of the capital Nairobi on opposite banks of the Mukengeria River. Farmers in the area grow fruit and vegetables on a small scale. Like many communities in Kenya, neither village has access to the national grid.
Eager to harness power from the waterfall, villagers started the project by building a weir and powerhouse. But without a turbine – which was beyond the area’s financial resources – the work was in vain.
On hearing of the dilemma from a local representative, the Kenyan government asked the U.N. Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to help.
“We were amazed with their innovation and the effort they put in place to set up the energy (supply),” said Alexander Varghese, UNIDO’s Kenya representative and an expert in renewable energy.
UNIDO stepped in with two turbines, solar panels and technical expertise. The villages now run the energy project as a cooperative, in liaison with UNIDO.
CHEAPER THAN KEROSENE
Kibae’s energy kiosk, which stores and sells electricity produced by the project, promotes the use of Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamps to replace smoky kerosene lamps, which were causing health problems, particularly among women and children.
Salome Njoka, a farmer and mother of six children, says the kiosk and one of the energy-saving lamps have improved her life, giving her a clean source of lighting in her home and relieving her from the high cost of purchasing kerosene.
“I use one lamp and I take it to the energy kiosk for charging once a week,” she said. “I have saved a lot of money and the lamps are convenient to use.”
A typical household in Kibae owns three kerosene lamps that consume 15 litres of kerosene per month at a cost of at least 975 Kenya shillings ($12) a month.
Njoka used to buy 10 litres of kerosene each month. Today she pays just 20 Kenyan shillings ($0.23) per charging session or 300 shillings ($3.50) per month, a substantial savings particularly as world oil prices rise.
She’s also contributing to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which drive climate change. Kerosene lamps emit carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, as well as carbon monoxide, a health hazard.
When she used kerosene lamps, Njoka’s children regularly suffered eye problems and respiratory illnesses, resulting in frequent trips to the health centre some 30 km (20 miles) from Kibae.
“My family witnessed many illnesses as a result of using the kerosene lamps,” Njoka recalled. “But since I started using the new lamps the problems has disappeared and my hospital visits have reduced.”
MARKET INFORMATION
It is not just in village homes that the energy project has made a difference. Computers and an Internet link at the Kibae centre, powered by the new energy supply, have revolutionised the way farmers in the two villages do business.
Every morning, they gather outside the centre to check on the prices of produce in the Central Province’s different markets. Price information comes through an auction system operated by the government’s Kenya Market Information System.
As the farmers gather, a community centre attendant prints and passes on the prices for such agricultural commodities as maize, beans, sorghum, vegetables, millet, fruit and cowpeas.
Farmers then decide on a market to sell their produce based on the prices being offered and the distance to the market. The system has eliminated middlemen who once exploited the farmers’ lack of access to information and bought from them cheaply, then sold later at the market at higher prices.
“The community center has empowered the community by connecting them to the market and good prices,” said Titas Gitahi, one of the farmers who sells vegetables and fruit.
Gitahi says the system has given farmers many more options.
“The system has let us exploit other markets outside our Kerugoya district. We go with our produce to markets located in Muranga, Embu and Nyeri and we tap opportunities available there,” he said.
NEW INDUSTRIES
The benefits of the power centre have also spread beyond the farming sector. The centre produces enough energy that the communities have created an industrial hub with projects such as soap making and fruit juice extraction, which add value to local produce and create jobs, particularly for women and young people.
Women’s groups, who run the soap and fruit businesses, collect and extract the juice of fruits such as avocados, passion fruits, oranges and paw-paws, then pack the juice in small bags for sale locally or in villages elsewhere in Kerugoya district.
The juice business alone employs 50 women and 60 youths in collecting fruit, extracting juice, packaging, marketing and distribution, group members said.
Other projects supported by the newly available energy include a maize meal mill and a poultry hatchery.
Apart from charging low-energy lamps, the energy kiosk also offers other services such as mobile phone charging, car battery charging, hair clipping and a hall for showing videos.
Thanks to the kiosk, Benson Muniu, a 30-year-old barber, has now set up a hair clipping business in Kiangombe, his home village. Previously, his clients used to travel about 40 km (30 miles) to Ndia, another town, for a haircut.
“The energy kiosk has assisted the locals in getting hair clipping services here in Kiangombe and Kibae villages. The service charges them reasonably and it has saved them from incurring transport costs,” he said.
Muniu himself also has benefited.
“The hair clipping business has enabled me build a small house on my farm and I have already bought one cow that provides my family with milk,” he said.
RENEWABLE POWER POTENTIAL
Kenya’s government, worried by worsening droughts and other increasingly erratic weather that may be linked to climate change, is now supporting a variety of renewable energy projects. It has mandated the use of solar panels in new home construction, and in areas where communities have access to the national power grid it is proposing feed-in tariffs so private producers of power can sell excess electricity to the national grid. Elsewhere, it supports projects such as the Kibae energy kiosk.
UNIDO says Kenya’s hydropower production potential is three times the country’s currently installed electrical generating capacity, and that projects in rural areas, where only 10 percent of the population have access to electricity, could be particularly important. It hopes to fund further projects like the one in Kibae, Varghese said.
UNIDO currently has eight projects that bring power to farming communities in Kenya, he said.
Abjata Khalif is a freelance journalist, based in Wajir, Kenya, with an interest in climate change issues. This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.
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