Kenyans recently experienced a crisis in petroleum products. The country ran out of petrol supplies, with some retailers selling the commodity at record prices of Sh200 per litre.
This was the second time this year the country had been plunged into an energy crisis, after the January 11 nationwide outage caused by vandalisation of a high voltage electricity tower in Nairobi.
That incident caused a security scare in the government, with President Uhuru Kenyatta immediately banning scrap metal business. Energy Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma, also initiated a crackdown in state utility firm Kenya Power that saw several top managers/engineers arrested and charged in court for negligence.
Clearly, Kenya faces a crisis in energy security. While over 70 per cent of Kenya’s approximately 3000MW installed electricity capacity is renewable, the intermittency of renewable energy sources has pushed Kenya to rely on diesel power plants to inject over 500MW to the grid to shed peak load and provide energy security. The Russia-Ukraine war, which has sparked unreliable oil supply globally, could compromise Kenya’s efforts to guarantee energy security to its citizens.
National grid failures are not unique to Kenya. South Africans are experiencing frequent power cuts by the national grid operator ESKOM. About 2,000MW of load was shed off by ESKOM in February 2022, to avoid grid collapse. Such a load shed would plunge Kenya into total darkness. South Africa burns about nine million litres of diesel daily to keep its grid alive, thus could also be impacted by insufficient supply of diesel.
In Europe, the Russia-Ukraine war is pushing economic powerhouse Germany to scale down its fossil fuel consumption. Germany is creating strategic coal and gas reserves and exploring major energy efficiency measures. However, experts and industry players are skeptical that even though these measures can reduce Germany’s reliance on Russian fossils fuels.
For instance, the measures can only reduce Russian gas consumption by 2000GWh, which is about 20 per cent of the gas demand. To do this, Germany intends to exploit gas reserves in the country, which could compromise gas energy security in Berlin.
The Russia-Ukraine war is causing soaring fossil fuel prices globally, devastating poor countries, especially in Africa, that depend on fossil fuels.
Coupled with unpredictable weather patterns resulting in droughts and degraded efficiency of the solar photovoltaics performance, increasing electricity generation costs and reducing production of PV power plants will further compromise energy security around the world.
But are we prepared for energy insecure world?
Just as food security, financial security and social security are important to households, energy security is critical in our homes. The International Energy Agency, defines energy security as the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price. For one to be energy secure, the agency confirms that the supply of electricity should not be interrupted and it must be affordable.
As we painfully face inevitable energy insecurity due to wars and climate change woes, our homes will never be spared. Load shedding that renders our TVs lifeless, unaffordable cost of energy that drains the last coins from our pockets due to high fuel prices aggravates the misery of poverty in this continent.
In Nigeria, the price of bread has risen by 40 percent this month. Cooking oil price in Malawi is up 50 per cent, people in Morocco are protesting sustained inflation in the capital Rabat and other towns, wheat supply in Rwanda has dipped due to sanctions on Russian exports, while fertilizer prices in Kenya have doubled.
Our lives are so energy-dependent that failure to meet the energy needs is catastrophic. The electronics like television, computers, mobile phones, play stations, remote toy cars, and video games are the cloned members of our homes. Without them, life is meaningless. Our kitchens are full of electrical appliances; cookers, microwaves, toasters, dishwashers, blenders and coffee makers, among others.
Our physical security is enhanced by security lights in our surroundings. Power cuts makes the street stark dark, increasing the risk of criminal attacks. Even our beautiful clothes depend on the diesel-run grids to be cleaned. We no longer dry and roast foods for storage, we freeze and keep them in refrigerators.
As governments struggle to secure reliable and affordable energy to their populations, at household levels, we must also talk and walk energy security matters. We must reduce dependency on the national grid and embrace other distributed energy sources. Unreliable energy supply affects us in the homes more than it affects the government. In any case, government will comfortably prioritise powering a hospital rather than a residential house.
For starters, for us living in Africa, where solar irradiance is abundant, we have to consider possessing few solar photovoltaics panels on our rooftops. The beautiful thing with PV panels is that you do not need to purchase 10 or 20 panels at once. You can start with one panel and keep adding regularly whenever you get money until you have a solar plant on your roof.
In the western world, national grid operators allow homeowners to sell excess power generated from their rooftops to the grid to encourage PV adoption. That is not possible in many countries in Africa, as our national utilities are riddled with weak distribution networks and corruption, and rely heavily on government subsidies to survive. Still, we must embrace PV, wind and biogas as alternative sources from the grid.
Granted, exploitation of sources such as wind mills and mini-hydro are still cost prohibitive for Africa’s households, but a group of households can pool resources together to buy them. Typical small hydros and windmills are able to power over ten households. To improve security around our homes, we must acquire standalone PV security lights to replace grid connected lights.
The key is to reduce dependency on national grids to improve our own energy security - for our own good. Energy is not luxury, but a necessity.
The writer is an electrical engineering specialist. Email: [email protected]
