Africa > East Africa > Renewable energy

Renewable energy in East Africa

  • This $6 a month solar energy plan could power a million homes in Africa by 2017

    MALAWI, 2016/07/04 The biggest obstacle to powering off-grid homes is infrastructure. The problem, specifically in sparsely populated areas, is a lack of power lines. Without lines going to a remote power grid, a lot of communities lack the access they need to electricity. Entire villages can remain dark. But there are ways around that. A startup called Off-Grid Electric is looking to use cheap rooftop solar panels for energy in rural parts of Africa, instead of building expensive infrastructure.
  • Malawi's solar power revolution starts by bringing schoolchildren out of the dark

    MALAWI, 2016/03/11 Young Kennedy is astonished. His face lights up in the single room in the straw-thatched house. So does the book he is reading with his friend, Nellie. The two excited nine-year-olds from the village of Gumbi in western Malawi have just done what about 600 million others in sub-Saharan Africa have never been able to do – switch on an electric light in their homes to read a book in the dark. There is a murmur of approval from the small crowd of people craning their heads through the doorway to witness the arrival of solar electricity in the village. “[These] bulbs will change lives. Our days will be longer and nights shorter. We will be like others,” says one mother, Chikumbutso Chaima. “Children will do better at school. They have a future. We have not been forgotten.”
  • Building the region’s largest solar system

    TANZANIA, 2015/12/12 In 2003, nine-year-old George Mtemahanji left his home in Ifakara, a small rural town in Tanzania’s Kilombero District, to move to Italy where his mother had managed to fasten work. It was eight years before he was able to return to his birth town, and he was surprised to see it faced the same problems it had at the same time as he left. Key to this was the district’s energy challenges. A lack of reliable electricity had in a lot of ways pushed the brakes on development and prevented local industries from reaching their full potential. For Mtemahanji, Ifakara had not changed in eight years. “Some days you had electricity and the next day not. One day of energy, the day next – none. And blackouts, so a lot of blackouts,” he recalled.
  • Azanzi Kifwete demonstrate how they bake cakes using a wooden solar box

    KENYA, 2015/11/24 In this rural village in Kilifi County, on Kenya's east coast, a group of women run a thriving bakery. On a good day, they make dozens of large cakes and over 100 cupcakes. And they don't even have a kitchen oven. Instead, the members of the Imani Women Group bake their cakes using only a wooden box and the sun. They earn enough money to help support their families and send their children to school. Constructed out of timber, leather and foil, the box can bake cakes in about two hours without electricity or charcoal. It works by trapping the heat of the sun, essentially turning the box into a mobile oven. For the 22 members of the women's group - whose name "Imani" is the Swahili word for "faith" - the simple wooden box has become a source of empowerment and gain, securing livelihoods and transforming families.
  • Zambia Cooperative Federation (ZCF)

    ZAMBIA, 2015/10/28 THE Government in collaboration with the Zambia Cooperative Federation (ZCF) has identified land for the installation of the Government sponsored solar milling plant in Kasama. The contractor has since moved on site to prepare the ground for the installation of the plant. Acting permanent secretary, Boniface Mbuzi said Government working hand in hand with ZCF, has finalised the land issue. "We have identified land near Lions Club where the facility will be installed," Mr Mbuzi said.
  • A Village School Struggling With Solar Energy to Ensure Good Education in Uganda

    UGANDA, 2015/08/01 It is a world trend presently with most developing nations focusing their plan on rural electrification in a bid for the rural communities to catch up in various developments just like their counterparts in urban areas. The emphasis on one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) to make rural villages smart in as far as provision of different energy source is concerned is being taken up by most governments and different development partners throughout the globe Uganda inclusive. A statement by Uganda's Rural Electrification Strategy and Plan (RESP) covering the period 2013 to 2022 emphasizes that rural electrification constitutes a critical part of the governments long range programme to eradicate rural poverty and to foster opportunities for rural Ugandans in each part of the national territory.
  • SkyPower, one of the largest developers and operators of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) energy projects

    KENYA, 2015/07/29
  • Kenya: Five Kenyan Firms Win Clean Energy Challenge

    KENYA, 2014/11/05 Boma Safi Limited, Kitui Industries Limited, Pfoofy Power & Light Limited, SCODE Limited and Sollatek Electronics Kenya Limited are the Kenya winners of the Power Africa Off-Grid Energy Challenge. They will each receive a grant of $100,000 (Sh8.9 million) for initiating off-grid solutions that deploy renewable resources and power socio-economic activities. They join a inventory of 22 winners from Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania who beat a field of nearly 300 entries and will as well receive grants of $100,000 each.
  • As world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in New York,

    TANZANIA, 2014/09/29 As world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, US, for the Climate Summit, Tanzanian dailies this week highlight actions being taken to address the world problem. In its editorial, titled 'Time is of the essence as Africa grapples with climate change', The Citizen said: 'No country is immune to the impact of climate change but it is the world’s poorest that will be hit the hardest. A equitable and inclusive world agreement to combat climate change is a moral imperative.' According to the daily, world leaders gathered in New York for the Climate Summit in an attempt to breathe new life into climate talks, which are presently approaching their 21st round. 'With the Kyoto Protocol deadline fast approaching,' The Citizen said, 'it remains to be seen how much international support Africa can leverage to advance its schedule.'
  • Contract signed for Africa’s biggest Wind Power Project in Kenya

    KENYA, 2014/04/01 The Lake Turkana Wind Power Project (LTWP), meant to add an existing 300MW of reliable, low cost wind energy to the national grid of Kenya, reached a critical milestone following the signing of the financial agreements in Nairobi, the capital. The signing of the over US$870 million financing agreements represents a major breakthrough to actualizing the biggest clean power energy project in Africa, spanning years of negotiations and fundraising, says Tshepo Mahloele, the CEO of Harith General Partners. The project will be financed with a mixture of equity, mezzanine deficit and senior deficit. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project is the initial of its kind in East Africa and will be the major wind project on the continent to date, says Mahloele.