Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC

🌍Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC organized a two-day conference in partnership with Climate Compatible Growth , the Council of Governors and in Kenya focusing on improving energy efficiency and sustainability at the county level for broader national impact in the month of June.

🌍The conference began with Martin Mutembei, Programs Manager, Strathmore Energy Research Centre stressing the alignment of county-level energy planning with national goals.

🌍Eng. Kihara Mungai from Energy & Petroleum Regulatory Authority, underscored the necessity of comprehensive energy plans encompassing all energy sources, including biomass and renewables.

🌍Breakout sessions, led by Pablo Ramirez Rodriguez, in Kenya, and Steve Pie, UCL discussed:

📝Data governance framework for energy data with a focus on access, creation, and management principles.
📝Integration of county and national energy strategies

🌍The conference concluded with a focus on reviewing the National Energy Policy 2018 for Kenya, incorporating Gender Equality and Social Inclusion principles into energy planning, and outlining commitments to better data collection and technical support.

🌍The County Directors in Energy left optimistic about achieving sustainable and inclusive energy futures through continued collaboration and capacity building across Kenya's energy sector and will now work on a data repository which will be validated towards the end of 2024.

📢 We ended the month of June in Government of Makueni County for a two-day workshop for the County Energy Plan (CEP) Technical Working Group to recap the methodology used to develop the Government of Makueni County CEP.

📢Various facilitators recapped sections on data collection, energy efficiency and conservation, energy access, and using Energy Access Explorer (EAE) to identify high-priority areas for energy access interventions. The team also had a chance to review an investment prospectus that can be used to fundraise for future projects.

📢The development of the CEP relied heavily on data, encompassing information about current and potential energy consumers, energy access Levels, prevalent challenges, and energy needs in Government of Makueni County.

📢Qualitative data was collected from 634 households, 394 businesses, 365 educational institutions, and 55 healthcare facilities. Quantitative data was also gathered through focus group discussions with women, men, youth, and people with disabilities.

📢Beryl Ajwang, WRI AfricaAfrica refreshed the technical working group on how data collection took place for the various categories and how tools such as KoboToolbox and StataCorp LLC were used for collection and analysis.

This workshop marks the end of developing the Government of Makueni County County Energy Plan.

We remain grateful to all our partners , WRI Africa, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for staying the course as we developed and have now completed the Makueni County Energy Plan.

Webinar Alert!

Are you keen on knowing how to utilize geospatial tools for integrated energy planning?

If you answered yes, click 👇🏿 to register.

https://bit.ly/3VFW76q

Date: Wednesday 19th June from 4-5 pm EAT.

The future is The future is

To register click 👇🏿.

https://bit.ly/3MQYM92

🌏After a week of learning the final module of the Micro Grid Academy Training, the young professionals who had trained at Strathmore Energy Research Centre had the opportunity to attend a one-day e-mobility workshop on 4th June 2024 at BASIGO premises.
🌏Through this program, the students had the opportunity to meet young people working in the energy sector and explore ways they could become involved in the emerging field of e-mobility.
🌏The speakers included Alex Munene, Advance Mobility who gave an overview of electric vehicles and their impact; Cliff Ondari, M kopa who spoke on strategies for securing investments, Samuel Waweru, BasiGo who shared their business model and challenges faced in the industry among others.
🌏There is no doubt that if you want to go far, you must go with people, and for this reason, we appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the growing E-mobility movement.
🌏The one-day workshop was possible thanks to the collaboration and support of ENEL Foundation, RES4Africa Foundation, YSEM, BasiGo , and Long Jump.

Last week, we held the final module of the Micro Grid Academy Training for 18 young professionals in the energy sector.

The training, delivered by Prof. Andrea Micangeli, Ignatius Maranga, Thomas Bundi and Daniele Guzzo, focused on Economics and Regulatory Frameworks, and provided a deep dive into:

✅Procurement & construction.
✅Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE), economics, business models, and micro-project financing &
✅Energy policy, legal, and regulatory framework in Kenya.

The five-day training was a collaboration between Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC and RES4Africa Foundation with the support of the Enel Foundation

⛈ Rainfall causing floods in many parts of Kenya is attributed to human-caused climate change and the Indian Ocean Dipole.

⛈ By providing engineers with training in alternative sources of renewable energy, Strathmore Energy Research Centre ensures we remain part of the solution to the ongoing impact of climate change witnessed at our doorsteps.

🗺We conducted two solar photovoltaic trainings in April. Solar Water Pumping and T1/T2 Solar Photovoltaic training.

🗺Would you like to join us in fighting climate change? 👇🏿

https://bit.ly/3MQYM92

🌩

🌞We kicked off April this week by preparing a solar water heater training trolley kit to be used to train solar water heater technicians in an upcoming training.

🌞The technology in use is Solariskit.Africa, the world's flat-packable solar thermal, a device that's less expensive to manufacture, easier to transport, and easier to install. It's addressing key barriers to solar thermal adoption.

🌞Do you work with solar water heaters? Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC will host the first solar water heating training using Solariskit.Africa.

Stay tuned.

🌏 The Micro Grid Academy was launched in 2018 with an aim to train 200 students. This academy was launched by RES4Africa Foundation and knowledge partner Enel Foundation.

🌏 By 2023, the program had trained 1850 people in 45 countries one of which is Kenya.

🌏 Its is to capacity-build technicians, engineers, and managers on energy access and decentralized renewable energy solutions.

🌏 The result is to create a specialized local workforce.
Capacity building contributes to increasing and improving access to energy while fostering local and job creation .

🌏 Since 2023, Strathmore Energy Research Centre has trained over 60 technicians, engineers, and managers in:

1: Decentralized Renewable Energy Systems
2: Decentralized Renewable Energy Site Selection and Engineering
3: Decentralized Renewable Energy System Design, Operations and Maintenance and Safety

Look out for 4

To learn more about Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC, click the link 👇🏿.

💡 Twenty-five engineers with diverse backgrounds completed a five-day grid tie systems training last Friday, 8th March.

💡 The training includes both hands-on and classroom lectures using our 15kWp solar unit.

💡 The practical on-site training is conducted on Strathmore University's proprietary 600kWp grid parallel photovoltaic system, a first in Kenya with a power purchase agreement.

💡 Technical planning, design, cost calculations, installation, and safety regulations are part of the the T3 Grid Tie systems training.

💡 Upon completion, you can apply for a T3 license through EPRA.

💡 There is also the opportunity to join an alumni group of seasoned renewable energy experts.

We conducted the Solar Water Pumping training for eight Malawian engineers from the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Northern Region Water Board, Southern Region Water Board, Central Water Board, Lilongwe Water Board, and Blantyre Water Board from the 12th – 16th February 2024 at Strathmore University.

The Solar Water Pumping training aims to empower trainees with the skills and expertise to leverage solar-powered solutions in providing a reliable alternative energy source to fuel.

Some of the key outcomes of the training were:

✔ Understanding solar fundamentals i.e. design, installation, operation, and maintenance of solar water pumping systems.
✔ Cost analysis and financial viability.
✔ Understanding of regulatory and policy framework.
✔ Analysis of environmental and social impact of solar water pumping systems.
✔ Exposure to case studies and practical approaches.

This training was customised to fit the needs of the team from Malawi. Would you like a personalised training in renewable energy? Click the link 👇🏿 for more information.

https://bit.ly/3MQYM92

We are glad to launch the Transport Energy Air Pollution - Kenya (TEAM-Kenya) strategic transport energy systems model for supporting policy in achieving clean growth in the Kenyan transport sector.

TEAM-Kenya has been developed as part of a Kenya/UK research collaboration involving Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC, University of Nairobi, Africa Emobility Alliance, University of Oxford, University of Strathclyde, and Imperial College London.

The research project included an integrated scenario development workshop last year (March 2023), which went into the development of the model.

TEAM-Kenya was developed from the Transport Energy Air pollution Model (TEAM), a modelling framework developed at the University of Oxford, adapted to the Kenyan case is a world-first for this level of decision-support tool for transport in an African
context.

This project is funded by Climate Compatible Growth.

The High-Level Stakeholder's Consultative Forum on Scaling Productive Uses in Renewable Energy (PURE) in Sub Saharan Africa brought together over 100 key stakeholders in the PURE ecosystem with an objective to identify concrete interventions for scaling investment in the sector.

Key outcomes of the forum include:

✔️Priority interventions needed to unlock investment at scale in the PURE sector are identified and agreed upon by ecosystem actors.

✔️Critical data and information needed by investors and PURE equipment suppliers to make investment decisions are identified, and commitment made by data-providers to provide data.

✔️Stakeholders in the PURE ecosystem commit to collaborate in addressing the challenges that continue to face SSA's PURE sector.

The insights from this convening will inform interventions in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

This forum was organized by World Resources Institute in collaboration with Strathmore Energy Research Centre, IKEA Foundation, Mott Foundation, Good Energies Foundation & .

Today's Energy Management Training concludes with a knowledge-sharing session between the Technical Working Group and Facility Managers to discuss how energy management can be implemented in Makueni County.

Next steps discussed include:

✔ To finalize the energy planning process.
✔ Establishing facility-level energy management teams.
✔ Team-to-team links should be established.
✔ Establish project teams to implement actions.
✔ Monitor, control, and report, including inspections and audits.
✔ Post-project monitoring and evaluation.
✔ Policy review.

A special thank you goes out to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Strathmore Energy Research Centre - SERC and WRI Africa for their support of this training.

The Makueni County office of the Governor, health, energy, agriculture, and water departments are participating in a two-day training on energy management to better understand how to save energy at all scales.

Eng. Naomi Nthambi (top), Makueni County Officer Energy, opened the training by reiterating the importance of conserving energy at the county. In addition, she discussed the Makueni County Energy Plan and current pilot projects spearheading energy efficiency in Makueni County.

The topics discussed include:

🔌Energy Management Regulations and Appliance Energy Performance and Labelling Regulations
🔁Energy Management System and Process for Monitoring and Evaluation
💡The Lighting Systems
⚙️Motor and Motor Control

The training which concludes tomorrow will ensure technical officers begin implementing energy conservation measures in their departments.

We began a two-day Energy Efficiency Training for the Makueni County Technical Working Group. The ongoing training is a deep dive in five areas:

🇰🇪 Energy Regulations in Kenya
✍Energy Policy and Principles of Energy Management
Energy Procurement and Accounting
💵Energy Economics and Financing Model
🏥 Energy Management in Buildings
💡Energy Monitoring and Evaluation

🌍 Energy efficiency at the county level is important as it will allow the county to reduce its energy usage and still accomplish the county goals.

🌍Energy efficiency also reduces the county’s impact on the environment, reducing the county’s carbon footprint.

This training is currently being facilitated by Dr. Evan Murimi and Hilarious Kifalu.