Japanese Professors Provide Technical Assistance for Renewable Energy Development in Kenya

A Japanese team lead by professors Izumi Ushiyama, President of Ashikaga Institute of Technology in Tochigi Prefecture, and Yuichi Nakajo, Director of the Collaborative Research Center, an associated facility of the Ashikaga Institute of Technology, has joined the Project for Capacity Development for Promoting Rural Electrification Using Renewable Energy, a technical cooperation project started in Kenya in August 2011 by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The project sponsors 12 joint development or research projects, including the development of dye sensitized solar cells and transparent semiconductor films, provision of access to cell phone battery chargers, production or improvement of small wind power generation systems that meet local needs, and design of wind power and small hydro generation systems.

When they visited Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya, the team provided support for developing appropriate technologies to promote electrification in schools, clinics, and other rural facilities that are still not connected to the electrical grid.

The installation of 10-kilowatt hybrid solar and wind power systems with the support has brought lighting to primary schools and allowed teachers to make teaching materials using computers with access to the Internet. It has also enabled rural clinics to store vaccines in refrigerators.

Kenya has placed energy development at the center of its national development plan, and aims to achieve an annual economic growth rate of 10 percent. Its plan is to increase the electrification rate in rural areas from the current 10 percent or less (as of 2009) to 40 percent by 2020. In fiscal 2009, JICA signed a trilateral agreement with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the government of Kenya for the project, which is scheduled to continue to July 2015 with a total budget of 200 million yen (about U.S.$2.44 million).

Posted: 2012/09/19 06:00:00 AM