Bid farewell to power cuts with solar panels

I n Kapchorwa district lies a famed village – Cheptilial, its popularity emanating from that fact that it is home to Olympics champion and Uganda’s only London Games Gold medallist Stephen Kiprotich. Although it is popular, there is little to show for it.
At night, it is covered in sheer darkness. Last month a Non-Government Organisation— Barefoot Uganda, decided to light up a few homes in this village through free installation of solar panels to enable access to solar energy, courtesy of Mr Kiprotich’s victory. The people here and in the neighbourhood had no hope of ever accessing power.

Such is the situation in most villages of eastern Uganda and most rural areas of the country where power access is a mystery.
In an economy like Uganda, transforming the energy sector involves a shift from the use of traditional energy sources like firewood and other basic forms of biomass to the adoption of modern energy services like grid power, thermal power and even solar power.

This transformation involves careful determination of which energy service or technology is appropriate for a given community. But whereas there has been an effort to have grid power extended to most of the urban areas and a few of the rural settings, other forms of energy like solar power, that is a cheaper source, is in very limited areas.

Despite the government’s role in ensuring that hydroelectricity power is available, up to now, the struggle to have solar power extended to areas that are not connected to the power grid are still on. There is still a big percentage of rural areas in particular that hardly have access to any form of power.
“There is still low penetration in Uganda because people are poor,” Mr Wafula Wilson, the Principal Energy Officer in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, said, adding: “The government has created a conducive environment for anyone to access this power but still the penetration is low.”

Experts say Uganda needs at least 2,000MW to sustain both domestic and industrial consumption and this calls for generation from all forms of energy sources, not only hydro but also thermal and solar. Unfortunately, not even half of this needed energy is generated today by the existing power sources. As far as hydro power is concerned, one of the major sources of Uganda’s electricity, about 730MW is generated but about 530MW are provided for usage at a given time, most of which is used in industries.

From Bujagali, 250MW are received, Kiira – Nalubale grid has a production capacity of 380MW but only gives an average of 180MW, while about 100MW are received from the other remaining plants. With this limited supply of hydro power, experts say there is need for an alternative source of power, preferably solar, but unfortunately, there is limited supply and access to this form of energy.

Solar energy
Solar power is energy from the sun that is converted into thermal or electrical energy. It is an alternative to hydro electricity power. Unfortunately, whereas it is considered a cheaper source of energy, it is yet to be enjoyed as 75 per cent of the population hardly access grid power or any other form of power, not even solar.
Statistics from the ministry indicate that whereas the target group is big, the number that has access to solar power is a small percentage.

Mr Wafula says government supported programmes to ensure access to solar power although little has been achieved. Some of the programmes include Energy Rural Transfer (ERT) whose target is to provide 510MW, Rural Electrification Agency (REA) that targets 20,000 systems and DWD that is out to have at least 33 solar water pumping systems established countrywide but all these plans are still on paper.
Although blame has been put on government’s reluctance in providing power, it [government] insists it has created the conducive environment to ensure that the public access solar power.

Mr Wafula said that whereas government is hardly involved in profit oriented activities like direct provision of solar panels to communities to attain solar energy, as it prefers leaving the market for private players, a conducive environment has been created for both the users and dealers in this product to ensure accessibility and affordability. These include provision of subsidies to end users, tax exemptions for solar power panels and any other solar equipment and grants to solar power providing institutions.

According to Rural Electrification Agency, a body contracted to extend power to rural areas, most Ugandans cannot access power despite government and private players’ efforts to bridge the gap. And most of this population relies on fuel power— kerosene. Such power, although it may appear cheap, is expensive in the long run. Barefoot power, a Non-Government organisation charged with extending power services to rural areas, kerosene energy which is the commonly used form of energy in these rural areas is extremely dangerous.

“It is very expensive in the long run and it cheats the poor of their savings because it can easily burn the surroundings and is also toxic,” BareFoot Sales representative Eastern Region, Mr Joel Wetonyi told Prosper magazine recently.
He says whereas one can spend about Shs5,000 at least every month to attain kerosene, this translates to over Shs240,000 every year which is a lot of money for a rural individual. Yet he says, with this amount of money, one can attain solar power panel and never have to pay year after year because it is a one-off investment that only requires only initial payment and installation unlike others.
“With solar, you need a little savings which you pay only once and begin enjoying the service at no pay at all,” Mr Wetonyi said.

He says that solar power can be attained with a minimum of Shs240,000, Shs341,000 up to as much as Shs4 million depending on the purpose the power is going to serve. And when dealing with some NGOs, prices are subsidised to as low as Shs65,000.
However, for a person in a rural setting, this is still very expensive to acquire. Ms Jane Nabyasi in Kyotera Masaka says she just can not put all her little savings in attaining solar power.

“That is a lump sum of money which I would have to spend. At least with paraffin, I can spend a little at a time,” She says.
Such is the mindset of most people in the rural areas. Many think they can not afford it even though they have the capacity to, which is the biggest challenge to government.

Challenges
However, government insists that for such power to be availed there is need to have a co-operative public who will pay for the service while government works with private players to avail the service at subsidised prices.

The other major challenge is the quality of the solar panels on the market. Mr Wafula says that Uganda’s market houses all form of panels, the junk and good quality panels and this is dangerous to the end user as they can hardly differentiate the right and wrong panels. This follows the lack of market for some of these products on other markets like UK, US and even in neighbouring Kenya.

However, Mr Wafula says that there is hope as statistics indicate that there is a consistent and constant downward move of solar power prices; hence, high chances of increased access to this form of energy.

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