The second day of the Sustainable Energy Expo began with a focus on how businesses can structure renewable energy projects in order to secure financing and mitigate the risks that come with adopting clean energy.
In his opening remarks, Peterson Mwangi of Finance Systems Consultant Limited said that the biggest challenge facing companies that want to adopt renewable energy is the high cost of acquiring and implementing clean energy. He went on to highlight some of the ways in which his companies can work around the high costs of renewable energy. One of the solutions he put forward was leasing the equipment as opposed to buying it.
Bernard Osawa who was the second speaker spoke about what banks look for in terms of financing clean energy projects. He also walked the audience through the process of getting funds from lenders. He went on to talk about some of the stumbling blocks faced by banks when choosing to fund renewable energy. The biggest risk proved to be acquiring land for projects and obtaining government letters of support to mitigate the political risk associated with it.
On how to get business financing, he advised that businesses should do comprehensive feasibility studies and assess the social impact of their projects on the community as it will put them on the right track when approaching banks for financing.
The second session of the day revolved around panel discussions on the balance between green energy consumption and production. Bernard Wahome, MD of Broadband Communications and Paul Simiyu of Solar Infrastructure Limited spoke about the benefits of adopting hybrid solutions to lower energy consumption utility costs.
Hybrid solutions are alternative sources of energy that compliment energy supply from the main power grid. These include wind, solar and hybrid battery generators. In the telecommunications sector which consumes 3% of the energy in the world, hybrid solutions can lower the consumption up to 30%.
Jikokoa CEO, Peter Scott gave an interesting presentation on his products. The Jikokoa jikos are in the same emission category as LPG gas cylinders and the goal is to burn charcoal as cleanly and as efficiently as possible. His stoves have saved families up to USD 42 Million on fuel costs and they are currently working on coming up with stoves that burn on briquettes and ethanol. The stoves retail for Ksh. 3,500 and it is the cheapest price that they can offer the stove when the cost for production is factored in.
Dominic Njihia, Director of Biogas International talked about how his company effectively uses waste from areas such as dumpsites and converts them to fuel.
The conference came to a close with an emphasis on taking advantage of the country’s rich natural resources and frequent benchmarking of developed countries in order to be at par with global trends in adopting clean energy technologies.
The Sustainable Energy Expo has been organized by the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) and the Ministry of Energy. The exhibition continues at Safari Park tomorrow afternoon.