In this sunny part of Kenya, solar cookers — which trap sunlight to heat food — have surged in popularity in recent years. But a big problem remains: How to cook when the sun doesn’t shine?
Communities are now starting to sort out solutions, from insulated baskets that hold onto heat after the sun disappears to use of back-up fuel-efficient charcoal and firewood stoves.
“Fluctuations in sunshine can hinder cooking using the solar (system) but with the basket we nowadays prepare tea during the day and can drink it after sunset,” said Peter Wanga, whose family has been using a solar cooking system since last year.
photo: Inti Ocon, AFP
The insulated basket “conserves enough heat to cook food even when there is no sunshine,” and is affordable and easy to use, he said.
In Busia County, in western Kenya, as many as 1,500 households have turned to solar cooking, mostly over the last four years, according to county Ministry of Energy figures. Other families have adopted more efficient charcoal or firewood stoves.
The changes in large part have been driven by Farmers with a Vision, a local community organization based in Bumala Township.
Over the last four years, “we have sold thousands of solar cookers and energy saving charcoal and wood stoves, and also found a platform to promote use of solar energy appliances such as lighting equipment,” said Didacus Odhiambo, the organization’s chief executive officer.
He said the clean energy effort has faced significant challenges, including as many as 60 percent of buyers defaulting on loans for equipment — a problem the organization is still trying to sort out. Many households struggle to find the upfront money to buy the more efficient cooking technology, he said.
SAVING TIME AND TREES
The switch to more efficient cooking aims to cut deforestation in Kenya, and health problems related to cooking over smoky fires. Those who have bought the new systems say another attraction is that they require only about a third of the usual time to cook food or heat water — a big savings of women’s time.
Julius Magero, an official in the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in Busia County, said that besides protecting increasingly scarce forests, the stoves also are helping women spend less time searching for fuelwood.
Lilian Nyapola, a member of Farmers with a Vision, said the new technologies — most of which cost on average US$25 to US$60 — have led to a decline in use of firewood and paraffin, which are costly and emit smoke.
“The uptake of solar cookers and energy saving wood stoves and thermos baskets is high,” she said. She sells around 14 clean cooking devices a month, she said — enough that now virtually all of the homes in her neighborhood now use them.
Nyapola said her 32-member organization has worked in schools, churches and homes to train community members on the new technologies, and that men have backed women switching to new cooking technology, not least because food can be cooked faster and rarely burns, and children aren’t injured in fires.
To afford the equipment buyers can access credit from Farmers with a Vision, or local microcredit agencies, Nyapola said, with loans often paid back over half a year or more.
Odhiambo said the group is in talks with M-Kopa, a money lending scheme owned by Kenya’s leading mobile telephone company, Safaricom, to allow buyers to make payments for equipment via their mobile phones.
BATTLING CLOUDY DAYS
Originally the group focused only on selling solar cookers, Odhiambo said, but after complaints about problems using them on rainy or cloudy days, or at night, members broadened their approach.
Now the group offers a range of different solar cooking boxes, parabolic reflector cookers, solar thermos systems and other devices, including clean cookstoves.
Box cookers — designed with help from the Free University of Amsterdam — trap sunlight that shines through the box’s glass top, using it to heat food placed inside. The device “can cook when the sunshine is low and when not much light is available. It retains heat and can cook for additional three hours,” Odhiambo said.
He said his organization also has partnered with EcoZoom, a company that builds cast iron improved wood and charcoal stoves.
Daniel Maneno, an official with the national Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in Busia County, called the initiative useful, particularly as training on renewable energy technology is provided free of charge.
He said the ministry is also promoting tree planting efforts in collaboration with the Kenya Forestry Research Institute as part of a broader effort to protect trees and reduce deforestation.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS