Aberdares mountain villagers to generate their own electricity
Sam Wangwe

In the Aberdares, a small group of villagers got fed up with waiting
for the government’s electrification programme to reach them and
decided to take matters into their own hands. They formed an
electricity company, the Gatiki Electrical Company, in which they had
bought shares of 10,000/- each. The villagers’ plan was to develop
three electricity generating plants along the Gikira River – Chiki,
which is set to produce 0.75MW of electricity; Kiawambogo, which will
produce 0.375MW and Gacharageini which will generate 0.25MW of
electricity.

The seven thousand villagers will all have their households lit up, where they will pay between a mere $ 0.65 and $1.25 for their electrical usage – a minute fraction of what most Kenya Power and Lighting Company customers have to pay.

This is an exciting initiative for Kenya because it could portend the
beginning of the adoption of a microgrids strategy for Kenya’s power
problem. The fact is, that while Kenya Power and Lighting Company is
currently serving about 20% of Kenya, they will not be able to cover
the country in the next decade even if they tripled their efforts –
not using the current operational framework.

Kenya’s power problems – and indeed all of Kenya’s problems – are also
its opportunities. The Gatiki project is a clear example of how the
Chama culture that Kenyans have so perfected can be taken to the next level so that they will aid in Kenya’s transformation efforts.

The idea here would be that communities could form companies such as
Gatiki and generate power from wind, solar, water and biogas for
themselves. Under existing law, communities will be able to generate a
maximum of 1MW per installation – beyond which the extra power would
need to be shed into the national grid and a power purchase agreement
be signed between the national electricity company and the local one.
Either way, communities will be lit up faster and they will make extra
income.

It is important to be clear that the payoff for such radical ventures
goes beyond the electrification of villages around the country. The
impact on education, health and small businesses cannot be
underemphasised.

The chama culture that we Kenyans have done so well would come in
handy when Kenyans in remote villages get tired of the long distances
that their women and children must travel and come together to build a
dispensary near them and go as far as take responsibility for their
running and sustainability. It will be revolutionary when villages in
Loitoktok, Kijabe and Pokot – to name three examples – set aside a
piece of land and build a police station near them and then go to
Commissioner Ali and ask him to staff it.

The idea here is that for Kenya to be a middle class nation by the
year 2030, then some fundamental changes must be made in the way the challenges are handled. Gone must be the days when the villagers look to their parliamentarians to sort out their problems. While it is true
the government has a lot to do with regards to the
transformation of the country and the provision of essential services
to the people, we must accept that the most aggressive of
transformational efforts will take years – especially, when governed
by the government’s rules on procurement and so forth.

Also, from a prioritisation perspective, it may be a while before
government reaches village roads and so forth as they must begin with
the bigger corridors and towns where the return on investment for the
nation would be highest and use the proceeds to repair and develop
smaller roads. However, the main pain points of a country are normally
the sum total of small aches at community level.

I may not feel, at a personal level, the damage to Kenya when the
Mombasa – Kisumu corridor is not functional but I do tend to be most
aware when the road in my estate is full of portholes. The deplorable
state of national hospitals is lamentable and a subject of whiny
conversation with friends in an evening, but the lack of maternity
services at the local dispensary or the lack of medicine, or indeed,
the lack of a roof at my child’s school is what I feel strongly about.
Why then should I wait for technocrats who can only see the big
picture to prioritise my project, when it is in competition with so
many others?

Assuming that we can accept that neither government, business, the
citizens nor any other person can effectively sort out the country’s
challenges, it is incumbent upon us to take on a more transformational
perspective to our approach to solving Kenyan problems at a local
level. We must get fed up as Mzee Ngai, the convenor of the Gatiki
projects did. Speaking to The African Business magazine, he said, “For
14 years, I waited patiently for KPLC to come and bring electricity.
In 2005, I just got fed up. I was getting no younger.”

I don’t suppose that any of the rest of us is, either.