053 Group Access to Solar Lighting

Posted on | April 27, 2010 | No Comments

Project partner
Send a cow Uganda

Status
On-going

Project description
Send a Cow Uganda (SACU) is a Christian non-governmental development organisation. It has been in existence for over 21 years and is involved in fighting malnutrition and poverty among vulnerable people in Uganda through the development of animal production, sustainable agriculture and local self sustaining groups. SACU currently works with over 5326 households in central, eastern and northern Uganda. It provides vulnerable people with training and on-going support, improved seeds and cuttings, animals, extension and animal breeding services.

In order to mitigate the rising cost and unreliable supply of wood and oil-based fuel needed for lighting and cooking farmers are using lorena stoves and biogas. The farmers were linked by SACU to private biogas service providers but the technology is diffusing very slowly due to the high cost of setting up biogas plants.

Some few households have been linked to dealers in solar PV and these have managed to sell a few systems to these households. Some of the farmers SACU is working with in Masaka have acquired solar power technology and are happy with it. Rapid needs assessment in the over 22 groups (about 1000 families) revealed that the farmers are experiencing difficulty in affording/accessing paraffin for domestic lighting.

Solar PV will be presented to the target groups as an energy source that can be used for basic household energy needs for example lighting, phone charging and entertainment.  It is planned that a solar vendor will present solar products they have in stock and make a single purchase as a group. It is planned that after this pilot, several SACU groups will be inducted into the project to encourage sustainability of the approach in enabling groups access solar lighting.

SACU will pilot the project with two groups whose members have sustainable incomes and can afford to meet basic needs.  Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques shall be used to review benefits of accessing solar lighting systems and to compare them with current means of accessing energy for lighting.  SACU will facilitate this review with support from Project Officers that are attached to these groups.

The discussions will consider the priorities of the potential end users on lighting and how best this need can be met.  A supplier will then be introduced to these groups and will be given an opportunity to promote their products.  It is hoped that the solar vendor will offer the groups a bundled offer which should benefit both the groups and the vendor.

Direct monitoring of project progress shall be achieved through the project officers that will file monthly reports. Participatory evaluation sessions within the groups will be encouraged so that input and feedback of the group members can be acted upon.

Lessons learned shall be documented and shared with the actors and EASE partners in shared reports, meetings and regional workshops.

The implementation plan shall include the following activities:

1. Identify the SACU groups and solar vendors interested in participating in the pilot.
2. Signing of memorandum of understanding with the selected solar vendor(s)
3. Election of project management committees/teams within the 2 pilot groups
4. Introducing/linking the solar vendor(s) to the SACU groups
5. Organise group workshops/meetings and invite the solar vendor to promote the technology and try to make sales to the group
6. Periodically carry out monitoring/evaluation visits to assess progress of the project
7. Monitoring of growth of demand and users of solar will be regular. Reports shall be written on a quarterly basis to document lessons learnt, challenges faced and bottlenecks identified and strategies used to overcome the bottlenecks and challenges.
8. The project will be evaluated and a final report will be shared with EASE partners.

Learning questions

1. To what extent does meeting basic energy needs in a group setting contribute to improving the livelihoods of individual members of the group and the wider community?
2. What is an effective intervention strategy in overcoming bottlenecks in satisfying demand for basic energy solutions to SACU groups?
3. What changes have occurred in the supply chain for energy solutions that can be attributed to the project activities?

Downloads

053 project description

More information
Contact us for more information at: energy-access@etcnl.nl

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