Lighting up millions of lives across East Africa
Solar energy helps businesses flourish in rural areas
Kakamega, Kenya – Catherine Wakhu knows the value of a lit room to a child’s education – and also the expense.
The resident of Mayoni, a village in western Kenya’s Kakamega County, has seven school-age children. Without money to pay for a connection to the electric grid, she used to spend 1 200 shillings (R140) a month on kerosene, half of it to fuel a lantern so that her children could do their homework in the evenings.
But for the past year, Wakhu has been the owner of two solar-powered lanterns, which enable her children to study and save her fuel money.
New Light Africa, the company that makes the lanterns, accepts payments on instalment over a period of six months, making the cost of 3 000 Kenyan shillings (R350) per lantern more affordable to people who might otherwise struggle to acquire them.
The business is one of a number of enterprises across subSaharan Africa that are developing ideas for low-cost, highquality and affordable clean energy products and services, from lighting to irrigation.
Some have received funding from Renewable Energy and Adaptation to Climate Technologies (React), part of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, backed by European and other donor governments.
The clean energy React programme provides up to half the needed funding to private companies trying to develop business models, services and products in renewable energy and energy efficiency that will improve the lives of the rural poor.
Up to 900 000 rural households across the region can now light their homes with solar lanterns, press their clothes with solar-powered irons or watch solar-powered televisions, said Victor Ndiege, who manages the React-supported portfolio of businesses.
Village barbers can earn a living using solar-powered shavers, and farmers can irrigate crops with solar pumps.
In Miguye, a village north of the Kenyan city of Kisumu, Oliver Bill, a 24-year-old university graduate, irrigates tomatoes on his 1.3-acre piece of land using a portable solar-powered water pump acquired with a loan from Future Pump.
“I decided to take the risk because the repayment scheme sounded fair enough,” said Bill. He expects to have paid for the pump by March.
Malayo Abuti, assistant administrative chief for Ebuhala sub-location in Kakamega County, said business-oriented funding for clean energy projects is an improvement on handouts and is helping more young people in off-grid villages start their own enterprises to earn an income.
“This is a good culture because paying back the loan gives one a sense of ownership, self-esteem and it makes them more responsible than receiving free tokens from organisations,” he said.
The React scheme selects companies through competitions. So far, 78 companies across 23 sub-Saharan African countries have been awarded grants and interest-free loans, Ndiege said. New Light Africa won the competition in 2016.
Each lantern is powerful enough to light one room. It is portable, so can also work as a torch, and has a port for charging at least three cellphones.
Sweden is one of the governments funding React. It’s ambassador to Kenya, Anna Jardfelt, was happy to see women and girls, in particular, getting basic access to electricity.
“… we hope the new business models developed in east Africa, providing electricity to millions of people far from the grid, will rapidly be taken up in west Africa and promote learning across the continent.” –