Low income earners to benefit from newly renewable energy project

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development together with Kampala Capital City Authority and private investors in renewable energy have launched a new project to access low-cost cleaner energy to low-income earners in Kampala.

The program implemented by Wana Energy Solutions (WES) aims to distribute cleaner cooking solutions to at least 1,500 households in the Kisenyi area in Kampala Central. The solutions include a Light Petroleum Gas (LPG) stove, gas cookers, energy-saving stoves, and briquettes, as well as electric pressure cookers, among other solutions, which the promoters say are targeted and convenient for the communities in those areas.

Emmy Wasira, the Founder and Chief Executive of WES Energy says they first understood what the majority of the people in the area earn and how much they spend on cooking before coming up with the model. He says that Under the hire purchase plan where one pays 1,600 shillings, it becomes cheaper because under the usual energy they use, mainly charcoal, they spend more than that.

Wasira says they realized that most of the communities in the target area could not afford to purchase a unit at once because of the kind of income they have, yet they were spending a lot in daily fuel supplies. In 2017, the same company in conjunction with the Uganda National Alliance on Clean Cooking pioneered a pay-as-you-go solution, which provided a metering gas cooking solution.

But Wasira says this has been convenient for smaller households and was not popular among the bigger families, hence the decision to come up with the new project that is both affordable and convenient to the majority of families in the slummy area.

He said that apart from the convenient payment methods, they have door-to-door delivery services to make access easy, as well as free refilling when the cylinder runs out of gas. Last year, the government launched a program to demonstrate and promote clean energy solutions, especially LPG gas, and it has been implemented in the Grater Kampala areas.

Brian Isabirye, the Commissioner Renewable Energy Department in the Ministry said this new project is part of the efforts to ensure a more sustainable solution is added so that more people are included.  While commissioning the project, Commissioner Isabirye said this pilot project would inform the ministry and the partners on whether to expand it to other parts of Kampala and later to the rest of the country.

The project is also part of a partnership dubbed Enabling African Cities for Transformative Energy Access (ENACT), funded by donors like Transforming Energy Access by USAID, Energy for Impact, and Local Governments for Sustainability.

The ENACT project is creating an enabling environment for the provision of adequate, safe, reliable, clean, and affordable access to energy and clean cooking in informal settlements, targeting over 2000 households and 600 micro-enterprises in Kampala, and the Sierra Leone capital, Free Town.

Isabirye hopes that these initiatives will turn around energy use in Uganda and that as more people afford renewable energy, it will in the end contribute to the protection of the environment by reducing the number of trees being cut for charcoal.

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