Uganda: Using the Sun to Make Ice
How USAID and GRS Commodities are helping fishers in Uganda preserve their catch
This post originally appeared the USAID Private Sector Engagement Hub Exposure site. Read the original piece here.
Most days, the fishing communities of Uganda’s Ssese Islands are in a race against time. It starts the moment the fishers haul nets full of tilapia and Nile perch onto their boats and ends only when they sell their catch at the mainland markets, some 31 miles across Lake Victoria. If the clock runs out, their catch will spoil, and their income will be lost.
Inadvertent food waste in Uganda is a huge problem. As much as 40 percent of post-harvest production, whether crops or fish, spoils before it reaches the market. The biggest challenge for fishing communities is a lack of cold storage. Until recently, fishers from Bukasa Island relied on expensive ice transported from the mainland.
Andrew Ssentongo, Founder of GRS Commodities, a local off-grid energy company, explains that the problem had become so acute that “by the time the boat arrived back at the island at 6 p.m., 30 percent of the ice loaded onto it at 2 p.m. had already melted.” There were no alternatives. With only a single diesel generator on the island, the fishers were forced to use expensive diesel refrigeration and inefficient ice to keep their catch cold. In a country where approximately 88 percent of the population lives on less than $5.50 a day, electricity can boost incomes.
Exploring Off-grid Productive Use of Energy in Uganda
USAID/Uganda partnered with USAID INVEST, an initiative that mobilizes private capital for better development results, to better understand the promise and challenges of scaling productive use of energy (PUE) technologies in Uganda. Working in partnership with Open Capital Advisors, a financial advisory firm, USAID found that when coupled with the right enabling environment, off-grid solar companies can develop and market innovative solar technologies with the potential to transform the off-grid economy in Uganda.
“Small, mostly local off-grid energy companies in Uganda often don’t have access to finance in sufficient amounts or at the times needed to sustainably grow their businesses,” notes Harry Masters, Senior Project Leader at Open Capital.
USAID Uganda has worked to increase access to finance for off-grid solar companies such as GRS and their customers through the Uganda Off-Grid Energy Market Accelerator (UOMA).
Bukasa Island’s First Mini-Grid: Proving the Model
In 2016, GRS partnered with Absolute Energy, an Italian-based solar energy investor, to successfully launch a 100-kilowatt solar mini-grid on Bukasa Island. Absolute Energy designed and constructed the grid while GRS Commodities focused on connecting customers. After the mini-grid was complete, Open Capital, with Power Africa funding, worked with GRS Commodities to develop a commercially sustainable business model tailored to the islanders’ energy needs. Open Capital’s initial financial modeling determined that a commercial ice-making facility was the best fit to serve as the anchor load for the Bukasa mini-grid.
Similar to concurrent efforts to expand electricity on a nearby island, the Bukasa Island mini-grid has created more than 200 electrical connections for households, small businesses, churches, and a community health clinic. Whereas shops and businesses previously had to pay a flat rate for inconsistent electricity from the town generator, now more than 80 small businesses have consistent and affordable electrical connections.
Productive Use of Electricity for Development: Expanding Access in Uganda
Seventy percent of Uganda’s workforce is engaged in agriculture. Ensuring that this largely off-grid population can access solar applications that increase productivity, such as solar irrigation, refrigeration, and milling, has the potential to improve agricultural yields and increase incomes, all while connecting smallholder farmers to bigger markets and strengthening the agricultural sector in Uganda for the long term.
As income increases because of access to solar technologies, demand for electricity also rises, strengthening the commercial feasibility of off-grid energy and reinforcing a virtuous cycle. In this case, the success of the mini-grid project on Bukasa Island can demonstrate to investors and governments that new solar projects in off-grid communities are viable. Partnerships between the private sector, development agencies, and governments are essential to making the promise of universal energy access a reality, one off-grid community at a time.
