Renewable Energy in Africa, a BCSEA project

The BC Sustainable Energy Association (BCSEA) is a volunteer-based, charity that supports the sustainable production, distribution, and consumption of energy in British Columbia and beyond. The association collaborates with governments, industry, universities and other institutions, other non-governmental organizations, and citizens to put in place the conditions needed to accelerate the province’s transition to a lower-carbon economy.

– About the BCSEA

Project location: Malawi

Malawi is a landlocked country in southeastern Africa, surrounded by Zambia, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The majority of the population use firewood for cooking, and kerosene (if they’re lucky) or candles for lighting.

“Malawi’s power sector is one of the most severely constrained in sub-Saharan Africa – less than 10% of the population of 18 million is connected to the electrical grid. For the 80% of the people living in rural areas, access to electricity is less than 1%. The total installed capacity for power generation in the interconnected grid of Malawi operated by Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) is approximately 362 megawatts (MW), of which 351 MW is hydropower and 11 MW is reciprocal engines (diesel sets). Some off-grid photovoltaic installations exist but are very few.”

– US International Trade Commission 

A new vision for BCSEA Vancouver

It’s January 2019. The BCSEA Vancouver Chapter steering committee is kicking off their first event of the year. A new event, called Volunteer Onboarding. 2018 was a year of change for BCSEA, with new leadership across the board of directors, a revamped steering committee in Vancouver, and a new strategy defined by the chapter.

In mid-2018, the Vancouver Chapter developed a vision document to serve BCSEA’s mission of “supporting the sustainable production, distribution, and consumption of energy in British Columbia and beyond”. The chapter chose to focus on people in the early stages of and looking to begin their sustainable energy careers. Vancouver Chapter’s mission is to increase job prospects for BCSEA volunteers in the green industry.

This demographic has long been the primary persona of BCSEA volunteers and supporters in the Lower Mainland. But BCSEA is a non-profit, with little infrastructure and means of carrying out large initiatives, so the chapter would have to think creatively about how they could serve this ‘customer’.

For Volunteer Onboarding tonight, the steering committee is hosting an informational session at a local tech startup and presenting the projects for 2019. The structure is simple: each member of the steering committee introduces the project or initiative they are heading up, a brief summary of past events, and the asks for the upcoming year. Are they looking for volunteers? sponsors? event space? Once all the projects are shared, there would be a call to the audience. Giving volunteers an opportunity to suggest projects they would like to head up as well.

The BCSEA Vancouver Chapter had just introduced two new policies:

1. ‘no champion, doesn’t happen’, or NC;DH; and
2. ‘volunteers in good standing’, a system for identifying and tracking volunteer’s activity and what the association would grant them in return for their time and efforts.

Henry’s dream

A few years prior, BCSEA’s Vancouver Chapter kicked off Monthly Socials. A monthly weeknight event where sustainable energy enthusiasts would gather in a pub downtown Vancouver. At some monthly socials, there would be a guest speaker, at others it would be purely freeform networking and socializing.

Kenny Yuen, Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Chapter, is the chapter’s longest serving active volunteer. He has previously held roles of Interim-Chapter Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer, as well as the Project Lead for the Energy Connections conference. Kenny remembers when the Vancouver Chapter shifted its focus in 2018 to better serve the volunteers reaching out and giving back to the region. It was around that time, when Dr. Henry Mwandemere, a retired United Nations scientist and long-time BCSEA member, started attending these socials.

Henry’s dream is to bring renewable energy to remote and impoverished communities in Africa. He attended at least 3 consecutive socials, pitching his idea to anyone who was willing to listen. At each of these subsequent events, Kenny would ask how his project was coming along. Dr. Mwandemere explained that he was looking to network with someone from the solar industry who may help him bring solar energy to Malawi.

Henry’s continued perseverance lead him to finding a contact in the solar industry. This brought on his next predicament for Kenny: funding. Seeing Henry’s passion and resilience, Kenny was inspired, his imagination began to run wild. This would be a perfect opportunity to serve Vancouver Chapter’s new vision, uniting volunteers who were looking for real-world experience with a real problem, and experts willing to put in the time.

Presenting to a wider audience

Back to the inaugural Volunteer Onboarding night, Kenny and Henry get up to present. As a leader in the organization, Kenny had put his hand up to be the champion for this new project, Renewable Energy in Africa, or ‘REnA’ for short. Neither Kenny nor Dr. Mwandemere knew how to make Henry’s dream a reality, but they jumped at the challenge through encouragement and support from BCSEA’s volunteers and project-based framework.

The presentation wasn’t polished, but it didn’t need to be. It was real. Inspiring. Built off of Henry’s experience of and exposure to global issues working as a UN scientist. This was going to be an opportunity for volunteers to do real work in renewable energy. Needless to say, the volunteers flocked to them after the presentation, overwhelming the pair with support.

A new BCSEA project is born

REnA’s purpose

In addition to serving BCSEA’s vision, REnA’s mission is to combat poverty in Africa by educating remote communities about renewable energy and by introducing renewable technologies to them. The project aims to accomplish two key underlying United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• Goal #5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; and

• Goal #7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

Project focus areas

Kenny started with nearly 20 interested volunteers. This wasn’t his first time managing a project of that size, but it was the first time he was the sole leader of a BCSEA initiative. They held meetings, brainstorming ideas and sharing information. There was a good mix of students, job-seekers, and industry experts. One volunteer was passionate about biogas, another wanted to design a solar array, and someone else started researching solar lantern solutions. The ideas and options felt nearly limitless, and the team decided to pick a few streams to narrow their focus.

Over the first year, three areas of the REnA project formed:

1. Partnerships
2. Biogas
3. Solar lighting

The power of partnerships

Kenny and Henry don’t want to be a fly-in-fly-out solution. They want to ensure the resources they are providing for these communities can be sustained by the people who live there.

Having grown up in Karonga, Malawi, Henry has established connections there, and it was a logical place to set up the first pilot projects. A lot of time and energy is spent on making connections and growing their network with potential project partners.

Henry connected BCSEA with Headmaster Island Mtambo, of the Chaminade Secondary School, and Environmental Officer Khumbo Mbeye. This established lines of communication between BCSEA and MIRACLE Technical Institute and the District Council of Karonga. In 2019, Headmaster Mtambo established the Malawi project team.

REnA’s goals are dependent on helping this community in Karonga to develop the skills and expertise to run their own sustainable energy systems, and profit from them. Partnering with MIRACLE, Chaminade, and the District Council of Karonga has opened the door for two pilot projects.

Alternative fuels

One group of BCSEA Vancouver volunteers began researching options for alternative, and more readily accessible, fuels. It’s commonplace in Malawi for wood-burning and charcoal stoves to be used for cooking. However, the smoke from burning these materials is known to cause health problems, especially in children. Malawi also suffers from deforestation, and the country faces a moratorium on felling trees. There is a black market for coal, and many homes have gone from 3 meals to 2 meals per day. The school REnA partners with burns, on average, 30 kg of firewood per day for meal preparation.

BCSEA and Malawi teams have together been developing a biogas solution. The initial pilot test successfully generated burnable gas from a feedstock of cattle manure and banana peel food waste. The BCSEA volunteers compiled their research and put together training documents and videos for the Malawi team in order to support these experimentations, as well as provided troubleshooting support by phone.

The second component of the project is to scale up this biogas solution. Kenny and the Vancouver team are currently working alongside the Malawi team constructing and testing a balloon digestor solution.

The Malawi team’s success in 2021 was exciting! But scaling up is not easy. The team is experimenting with a balloon digester solution to keep components relatively simple and accessible. To speed up the process, Kenny acquired materials in Vancouver and sent the team their first balloon digester kit.

If biogas can be created and captured effectively, it can be used as a cleaner burning solution and alternative for cooking fire.

Harnessing the sun

When you think about renewable energy in Africa, it’s impossible not to consider solar power. Some of the BCSEA volunteers began researching solar lantern technology and worked with the Malawi team to optimize a design for the public market. The idea being, the market could then stay open longer and provide more flexible hours for the women working and selling their goods there.

Vancouver volunteers came up with cost assessments and a testing program for solar powered lamps. As part of the pilot project, BCSEA sent MIRACLE and the Karonga District Council test lamps and a phone to improve correspondence. The first part of the project was centered on a solar streetlamp project with Chaminade Secondary School. The lighting helps protect from animal attacks at night, and provides additional time for study and activity when it’s dark out.

Traction and excitement over the REnA project carried on throughout the year and into 2020. The team, lead by Henry and Kenny, was able to develop strong relations with the team at the secondary school.

Embracing adversity to continue a worthy mission

BCSEA has never ran a project like REnA before. Overcoming the steep learning curve was, and still is, a challenge.

The team quickly ran into funding issues for the solar project. The upfront cost of setting up for the whole market space is significant. This slowed the project down, as the Vancouver BCSEA volunteers looked into fundraising options.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major hurdle for the project. Beginning 2020, the teachers at Chaminade have had to spend more time and effort than usual caring for and protecting students from outbreaks. Amongst other hardships, this leaves less time for renewable energy capacity building. Additionally, project personnel in Malawi has changed a couple times. When the project champion leaves, new relationships and trust needs to be created and built up again.

For Vancouver, COVID-19 has posed difficulties as well. In 2020 and 2021, volunteers often could not meet up to work on the design and testing of the digesters. Many volunteers suffered from screen fatigue at work or school, and did not want to spend additional time on screens for BCSEA meetings. These barriers caused the projects to progress slowly, and interest was lost for those volunteers who were looking for quick turnaround and immediate results.

Kenny decided to narrow the team’s focus. He didn’t have the capacity to manage disengaged volunteers, so he focused on the most promising items that were getting traction with the Malawi team. The focus had to be on the biogas project. The solar work would have to be put on hold for now.

Looking ahead at the future of REnA

Reflecting on his biggest learnings from REnA, Kenny explains:

“[When Henry first started REnA] I thought the project would simply be introducing renewable energy to focus communities. I soon learned from Henry that REnA is a long-term committment. Working with energy poor communities isn’t only about fundraising so we can send materials and equipment from biodigesters and solar lighting; it is about working with communities to increase economic opportunities so as to ensure they are resilient and do not revert back into a cycle of poverty when equipment wears out and breaks. Henry’s vision for REnA focuses on teaching girls and women to maintain and operate equipment and introduce banking cooperatives where women own and invest in their communities’ economic development. Henry reminds me of a very popular saying in Africa: “Educate a man, you educate and individual. Educate a woman, you educate a nation.”

– Kenny Yuen, Vice-President BCSEA, Vancouver Chapter (2021)

Doubling down on biogas

What is in store for REnA next? Speaking with Kenny Yuen, he shared the team’s goals for 2023:

1. Assist MIRACLE in designing and converting a recycled grain container into a 5 cubic meter fixed dome biodigester; and
2. Have an ultra low cost balloon digester design ready for commercial use.

The fixed dome digester will help keep biogas momentum going while research & design continues on the balloon digester. The team went with this route initially to combat issues with supply chain. Those issues are anticipated to persist, which makes it even more important to come up with an improved design keeping the components simple and widely available.

Collaboration between team Malawi and team Vancouver is key for REnA’s continued success. Kenny wants to make sure team Vancouver holds up their end of the relationship, and has recently provided a donated laptop to help them work. In addition to prototyping, testing, and improving design, fundraising will likely be a large part of the team’s activities through 2023.

From project management, to financial planning, research, campaigning, and hands-on experimentation, there are many upcoming opportunities for volunteers to step up to the challenges of REnA and become champions themselves.

A vision for the future

Kenny doesn’t want to set up something and disappear. While the immediate next steps are clear for his Renewable Energy in Africa, BCSEA project, the long term plan is yet to be set in stone. This leaves many options on the table, all with significant potential. BCSEA is discussing ways to use the REnA model for more outreach and education projects. They already have a highly successful program, CoolIt! – which empowers young sustainability champions at the elementary and high school level. REnA has always been about helping renewable energy advocates kickstart and propel their careers in sustainability. Kenny envisions ‘Renewable Energy Projects’ aligning more closely with CoolIt! and becoming a similarly successful venture, targeting university students and recent graduates.

Beyond BC, and well past the short-term vision, the REnA team is excited about the potential for advancing cooperative banking in poor and rural communities, decentralized finance and carbon credit avenues. As well as bringing wind energy into the regime, further development on solar projects, and continued capacity building with African partners.

Continued globalization and advancing technology opens many-a-door to remote volunteer and career opportunities across continents. Imagine a firm in Canada hiring ‘REnA graduates’ from Karonga as biogas implementation experts. Or post-secondary school intern placements, working for project teams in Malawi, remotely from Vancouver. These new found experiences and perspectives can then be brought back to their communities, continuing the cycle of sustainable energy development.