From bicycle dynamo parts generating 5-10kW of electricity to a power plant set to generate more than 720kW, John Magiro is not your ordinary innovator.
Last week, Magiro Power in partnership with the National Environmental Trust Fund (Netfund) and Belgian firm, Hydrobox, unveiled a containerised hydro-solar power plant in Gitugu village, Murang’a county.
Dubbed Gitugu 1, the plant which is the first of its kind, is targeted to generated more than 720kW of electricity to serve more than 15,000 homes.
When he started out in 2014, Magiro established a small powerhouse on land he was given for free.
His idea was to replicate what the bicycle dynamo does to generate light and find a method, using the same criteria, he could use to generate power for his home.
He also used recycled parts and locally available standard engines to generate electricity from a waterfall in river Gondo, Mihuti village, Murang’a county.
The same year, Magiro was recognised by the Green Innovations Award (GIA) programme, which is organised by Netfund, and he was able to scale up his innovation.
Consequently, he increased the power generation capacity to 47kW from 7kW, translating to more than 600 per cent rise in productivity.
“When I started out, I lacked adequate financing. I then joined Netfund and won awards and that was a stepping stone for me to improve Magiro power," he said.
"Partnering with Hydrobox and Netfund for this project is a booster because my community will benefit greatly.”
An alumnus of Njumbi High School, Magiro said he faced a lot of challenges due to lack of electricity.
“I am giving back to the community as I wouldn’t want any child to go through the trouble of not having power,” he said.
“People rarely know where electricity comes from. Some even don’t know where the national power grid is and we want to make sure that this electricity is made available to everyone.”
Magiro said the land where the power plant is housed is leased and after a few years, they will renew the agreement.
Through this, he said, the owner of the land gets free electricity.
The power plant supplies electricity directly to more than 3,000 residents within a 30km radius, including factories, hospitals, schools, small and large-scale businesses like Kiriti tea factory.
“We have connected 12 schools in the area and we have donated computers to help the children learn,” Magiro said.
“This is a project that will not only serve my home, but will also transform my community. My main aim is not only about constructing and connecting the powerline all the way to Gitugu, but also focuses on how we can get the same project to serve the community.”
He said the partnership has made it easy for him to get all the permits required to run the project.
They target to power more than one million people by 2027 in the long term.
It will however be difficult, he said, to determine how much will be required to reach their short and long-term target.
“We have realised that some of our customers are not within the grid, some are five kilometres away and others are 300 metres away. We accord the budget to where the customer is located, how big the space is and check the customer’s consumption rate,” Magiro said.
As an independent power producer, he said their billing is cheaper compared to the national grid.
“When I started this project, the aim was to ensure that I connect all customers to affordable and reliable power. There are some customers who are unable to pay for connection to the national grid and that is why our tariff is lower,” he said.
“We are not competing with Kenya Power, but we want to make sure that everyone is connected by giving the locals an alternative option.”
Hydrobox CEO Thomas Poelmans said they believe that electricity should be made affordable.
“Our rates are 10-20 per cent lower compared to KPLC,” he said.
“The secret behind it is to generate power in a decentralised way, a local way, so that we are using locally available resources to respond to local demand instead of having to transmit the power hundreds of kilometres away.”
The idea to containerise a hydro-solar power station, Poelmans said, was because they noted that Africa, Kenya specifically, has a lot of untapped hydro-power potential.
“By containerising a hydropower station, we were able to reduce the costs, reduce the production time and you can enter an element of mobility. So let’s say in 10 years time, there is no demand here, or the grid has reached everywhere where there should be power, we just move it and deploy it in another location,” he said.
The project cost about $1.8 million (approximately Sh252 million) and with the potential to provide power to 15,000 people, he said that the money was well spent.
“Our dream is to empower one million Kenyans by 2027 because even if the electrification rate in Kenya is quite high at 75 per cent, there are still a lot of rural areas that are left behind,” Poelmans said.
“As Hydrobox and Magiro Power, we want to step into those regions to connect those people who are not served.”
He said they supply the poles and the lines to the consumers but the distance to the grid has to be reasonable.
“We cannot be putting a line of 10km to connect one customer. The ability to connect a customer really depends on the proximity of the grids today,” Poelmans added.
“When developing a project, we make sure that there is enough demand. We look for a combination of anchor customers such as factories and firms combined with small businesses and households.”
He said with the Gitugu power station, they have also implemented a capacity of 535kW in hydropower and added 130 kW of solar power.
“The reason behind this is that during the dry season, the river will generate less power so it will be compensated with power from the solar installation.”
“For the lifespan of the power station, we always count 30 years but we’ve seen hydropower installations last up to 80 years therefore we know that this power station will be sustainable.”
He said they have met all the national requirements and are working at every level to join international standards.
Netfund CEO Samson Toniok said the power plant launch was a clear testimony of the impact of partnerships between government, civil society and the private sector.
“There is a need for partnerships and collaborations in this space. Here, there is a lot of creativity and innovativeness where you find that there is a data centre around the plant that aims to make sure that locals can get use surplus energy when other users do not need the power,” he said.
“The aspect of sustainability is to ensure that the power does not go to waste. We also call for investments to tap into the opportunities that exist in Africa and in our country across all sectors.”
Poelmans said plans are underway to roll out three more similar projects, this year, connecting the same route.
“In parallel, by the end of the year we will have established a mini-grid in Murang’a county just below one megawatt, and several projects in Western Kenya as of next year,” he said.
This is with further support from Finexpo.
He said that in Kenya, smart metering regulations need to be implemented so that in future, innovations such as the Hydrobox power station can be able to supply power to people in Nairobi, if they are allowed to use the national grids.
“The missing bit in terms of the government liberalising the electricity market is to allow for smart metering so we can be generating the power from Murang’a and people can be using it in Kisumu or even Nairobi,” Poelmans said.
