Inside Stand-Alone Photovoltaic systems in Uganda

By Claudio Brivio

Partner: Village Energy Uganda Ltd.

Period: 14thOctober – 13thDecember 2013

Objectives: - Analysis of Stand-Alone PV: design technology and feasibility for rural electrification. - Development of an appropriate sizing tool for the local context. - Market survey of Stand-Alone PV components.

Village Energy Uganda Ltd works to provide solar based energy solutions to off-grid households, small businesses and communities in Uganda. Through assembling and installation of Stand-Alone Photovoltaic systems (Photo 1), the aim of this social enterprise is to provide the opportunity to improve social, economic and environmental lifestyle to rural and peri-urban communities, where the main grid is far to be extended. Since its inception in 2009, Village Energy has provided over 4500 solar systems in 15 districts of Uganda. The head office is based in Kampala with a regional office in Soroti. The strength of Village Energy is to be able to show off products assembled in Uganda by Ugandan employees (Photo 2). However, the made in Uganda brand is not winning because is a drop in the ocean of endless companies that import finished low-cost products from abroad putting a strain on the survival of companies such as Village Energy. Fitting into a wider context of a thesis on PV appropriate sizing methodologies for developing countries, the main purpose of my internship has been to help Village Energy to find ways to make progress in efficiency and gain competitiveness.

I arrived in Uganda on 14th October, the impact with the African context it was strange but truly inspiring. Thanks to the warm welcome of the Village Energy’s staff (Photo 3), composed mostly of young and determined boys, I felt immediately integrated and I started to work with the strong desire to give the best I could.

In the first month, I worked in the main office of Kampala building up the VE Sizing&Pricing tool, a decision support instrument composed by simple Microsoft Excel sheets capable to size SAPV systems and make everyone in Village Energy capable of giving updated quotation in some minutes to clients. In the same period, I walked around the city to collect price information useful for the scope of my thesis, but also for the company.

In the second month, we decided to test the new instrument. I went to visit the regional office in Soroti (a very small but “really African” town) and I decided to follow some installations during a "promotional tour" of the company around the country. For ten days we travelled long all the northern part of Uganda (region devastated by one of the bloodiest civil war lasted for more than 20 years) and I had the possibility to see the beauty of the nature (Photo 4) and the reality of the deep-rural part of the country. We sized and installed systems in a primary school (Photo 5), in a small hospital and finally we donated portable pico-PV systems to disadvantage children, offspring of the war mentioned before (Photo 6).

The outcome of this experience was amazing. The things I've seen are incomparable, and I definitely learned a lot more than I left, both from the professional point of view but above all from the human one. The reality of Africa is not understandable from abroad. The people you meet, the feelings you feel, indelibly change the way you view reality and make you positively recontextualize your whole life.

Photo 1: Solar Home System (Musana 500) installed in Soroti by Village Energy Uganda Ltd.

Photo 2: with Frank after having assembled an hand-made photovoltaic module

Photo 3: with the Staff of Village Energy outside the Kampala office.

Photo 4: a breath-taking view during the road trip, elephant on the river Nile.

Photo 4: during an installation for the Lira secondary school

Photo 5: Donating portable pico-PV systems to children affected by nodding disease in Gulu.