Solar transforms Tanzanian village
Simon Collings, Director of Learning and Innovation at Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) writes about the organisation’s recent trip to Mwanza in Northern Tanzania and how he saw solar energy transforming the community.
The village of Sakwe is a 3 hour drive east of Mwanza in northern Tanzania. There are around 800 households scattered about. The main street is lined by small stores selling general groceries and other essentials. Sakwe is 4 km from the nearest grid connection. There is small likelihood of the grid extending here and anyway the connection fee is expensive (around $300.) People make a living growing cotton and maize, and raising livestock.
Four years ago the village had no mobile network coverage and few people owned a phone. Everyone used kerosene to light their homes. Today the villagers estimate there are as many as 3000 handsets in the village, network coverage is good, and almost every home has at least one solar lantern. ‘Kerosene is hardly sold here,’ one villager told us. Solar is providing electricity for essential needs – one of these being phone charging.
GVEP is working with six entrepreneurs in the village who provide phone charging services, and we are about to start work with five more. Antonia Giluli was using a car battery to provide phone charging when GVEP met her last year. She was charging 6-7 phones a day and every few days the battery had to be taken into the regional town of Bariadi for charging. With GVEP’s help Antonia was able to secure a loan from Postal Bank of Tanzania and bought a 50W solar panel and other equipment. Now she charges between 25-50 phones per day. Her record books showed that on one day in June she charged 90 phones. At 200/- (12 US cents) per phone she is making $4-5 a day. Antonia used part of her loan to stock her shop with bicycle spare parts which are much in demand.
Antonia Giluli (seated) and her sister charging phones
Even with 11 phone charging service providers in the village the demand will not be fully satisfied, but competition does mean that the cost of charging a phone has fallen from 300/- to 200/-. Few homes have solar panels and the ability to charge phones at home, but most do have small solar powered task lights thanks to the local promotional activities of Sunny Money. Using schools as a distribution platform, Sunny Money has brought quality d.light products to the community – the S2 and S20.
Two d.light S2 lights charging next to the panel used by one of the phone charging businesses
Apart from phone charging the GVEP supported entrepreneurs also provide other services such as barbershop (using electric clippers) and TV viewing. The 2014 World Cup had a big following in Tanzania and one entrepreneur in Sakwe invested in a satellite service so he could show matches in his front yard. His neighbours paid a small fee to watch.
GVEP aims to help 550 businesses in total become established and profitable in the Mwanza region by Sept 2015. Currently there are 336 active businesses in the project and 98 more waiting to get started. Because the equipment costs around $400 some of the entrepreneurs need to borrow from a bank. This is challenging to do on their own but with GVEPs support almost 80 enterprises have secured loans with more in process. Eleven entrepreneurs – ten of them women – received their loans while I was in Mwanza recently. From the bank they went with the GVEP technology mentor to a reputable supplier Zara Solar to buy the equipment they needed.
Rebeca Maskini (left) and Pendo Mwandiki (right) with their newly purchased solar panels
It was like a party in the shop, everyone excited to be getting the equipment they know will transform their businesses. All of the entrepreneurs supported by GVEP receive business training and mentoring to ensure that by the end of the project they have the technical and business skills to prosper.
This article also appears on the GVEP international blog: http://gvepinternationalblog.wordpress.com/.
Head to http://www.gvepinternational.org/en for more information on the GVEP.