Kathryn Nevard - Guest Blog

Nothing in a developing country is ever easy, even if it looks clean and clear on paper, once in the field the troubles always begin. It sounds straightforward to businesses in America; stop using kerosene; use an LED light that is not only more inexpensive-but also better for one’s health and the environment. It is convincing people who have never seen or heard about these consequences, what is right and what is wrong. I have seen situations like these in Tanzania before, too many times-and it still gets me. In The Gambia I lived it as a Peace Corps volunteer where I sat by a fire nightly with my host family, holding discussions focused on not about what they want but what they need. A rural village of twenty; using kerosene at night unaware of all the health consequences, the ground filled with polluted debris being used as the children’s playground, unsanitary drinking water from an uncovered well, and barely having the funds to afford a bag of rice while living on ground zero for the food crisis. 

In Nepal as a volunteer teacher I lived in a similar poverty stricken environment at a school in the Himalayas. The only power source was from miles away, no studying; our only option at night was to sleep. The children, most refugees from Tibet, and I slept on a wood floor. At night I heard stories of their life without light, water, and power; something that Americans couldn’t fathom to live without. To us these are necessities; to them a convenience. At sunrise the children and I walked a mile to bath at a community well, the line of villagers wrapping around the hillside and the foul smelling well being the only water source in town. All these countries and projects produce difficult challenges and endless questions. With these discussions and experiences, I have learned to make every effort to understand these communities’ values, expectations and strategies that they develop to meet their daily needs. With this understanding, we can then learn how to implement projects that will be sustainable and vital to the energy poor communities. 

Unfortunately, I have also observed the effects of failed projects in the field. The solar panels that become broken and unused, computers that crash due to lack of power, water pumps damaged and in need of maintenance, water filtration devises that become toys for the young children, books that develop into the source for a families cooking fire; the list is endless. How do we produce clean technology without further polluting the planet and stop producing technology trash in developing countries? It is disappointing to see projects fail. Many failures come from lack of community surveys and ignorance on the villager’s culture and values. These daily challenges that the energy poor face- one can only learn how to attack this challenge by working out in the field where the obstacles begun. Asking the local’s, going to the villages, and learning their lifestyle to figure out how to implement the appropriate project in that developing country.  It is imperative to remember that even if projects sound flawless, it may not be suitable for the selected community.

I believe dissigno is on the right track; to implement small businesses and work with local entrepreneurs to create a sustainable lifestyle and environment. By providing the entrepreneurs with the skills and technology, the entrepreneur can then proceed to take control of the evolving situation by using their own problem solving techniques and providing the community with reliable income flow. This project, like all, will take steady monitoring, assessment, and on site revisions in order to succeed. If managed properly and assessing the local’s needs, I predict we will come closer to our goal of helping developing countries create a sustainable, healthy, and safe environment that before long will stand on its own. 

World Bank Energy Week

Last week I went to the World Bank’s Energy Week in DC. It was an exciting event in which the WB hosted “energy and finance industry executives, senior donor and developing country government officials, stakeholders and leading-edge thinkers of the energy sector”. Seminars discussed energy efficiency, rural electrification, alternative energy resources, and climate change. The Global Energy Assessment was an interesting topic discussed by US RE trade organization and private sector. If you’ve been paying attention RE there was nothing new, except the passion to engage the emerging markets.

• Solar PV construct is fast, uses established technology for low risk project development and is highly dependent on project financing
  
• Subsidies distort market
  
• Bio-Mass is highly risky and often needs to be balanced against the impact on the environment and food
  

However, a new bit of info was China considering or enacting a “feed in tariff” to spur RE development.

The Rural Energy Access seminar discussed the biggest pollutants among the poor as being bio mass stove cooking. Haiti is the classic example of bio mass usage gone wrong. Nearly 90% of Haiti is lost to deforestation. To compare nearly 90% of Tanzanian’s uses bio-mass to cook with, but re-growth is quick, and coverage extensive. dissigno’s project in TZ focuses on kerosene lanterns as a source of indoor air pollution. We didn’t really think to address cooking. Most of the cooking I saw was done in another area or room, away from the family area. But I imagine that the woman cooking inhales quite a bit of particulate and smoke while making meals.

Based on this I attended a seminar on cook stoves. The technology spans improved stoves made from locally available materials such as those created by a Grameen Shakti enterprise to a German company making efficient stoves and importing them to Africa for sale. Gramen Shakti’s model is impressive. Not only do they have the backing of the Grameen Bank’s network (impressive to say the least), but they use local vendors, local materials and enable the local community to gain value from the supply chain, manufacturing and service. To me it seems ideal. However, I’m sure the German stove will give it a run for their money. Their stoves appeal to the middle class as an aspirational product.

Other areas of interest included rural electrification. Grid connection is notoriously poor throughout Africa. Tanzania for example is around 22% depending on whom you talk to. In addition, just because a community has a grid penetration, doesn’t mean everyone in that community has power at their house. Connections are expensive. The waiting list for the utility to make the connection is long. Often time people take it upon themselves to make their own connection. Even if they do have power it might not be reliable. Kenyan Power and Lighting Company is estimated to have around 11,000 outages per month.

I did hear someone mention power pooling, power trading, and harmonization for power traded between countries in Africa. Many countries supply power to their neighbors already. Organizing power commodities market in Africa would be difficult but it would certainly make investment vehicles and deeper grid connections easier. Pre-paid electricity, similar to pre-paid cell phone minutes is something that Eskom does already in South Africa and could easily be expanded to other communities and countries. It would reduce some risk for the utility to connect houses and re-coup it’s investment.

Finally the solar home system (SHS), which I am somewhat dubious of, was discussed. Grameen Shakti is also involved in selling and financing these systems for individual use. When asked why he thought it was more effective as a program in Bangladesh than Africa, Mr Dipal Barua said that the proximity to communities between the sales shop and end-user made the early concerns addressable. Maintenance and the small usual start up issues were quickly solvable. Whereas in Africa in general, communities were so dispersed that it might take a few days to get a technician to a home to fix an error. In addition he suggested that Bangladesh had a history and culture with micro finance. Small loans linked with the equipment made it easy to get SHS’s into people’s hands.

Finally, a World Bank presentation showed that they were still working on the link between energy and poverty. To make a correlation is easier. However it is much more difficult to show that poverty and power are a direct consequence of one another is difficult. Monitoring and evaluation are essential elements of out Tanzania project and we are very concerned with data gathering to full understand the impact of lights and power on the communities we are working with.