Challenge

Kenya Vision 2030 and the Presidential Big 4 Initiative identify the agro-processing industry, which forms about 38% of Kenya’s manufacturing sector, as one of the key drivers for realizing a sustained annual GDP growth and fighting food insecurity. It is a diverse subsector that heavily depends on agriculture for raw materials. Water and energy are the two key resources in this sub-sector and it is imperative that they are better managed through adoption and implementation of climate friendly energy and water innovations. This is to improve food production and sustainable development. Food especially, is required both for export and local consumption. The Kenyan energy consumption is largely dominated by petroleum and electricity. In an analysis conducted by Eenovators Ltd, a Kenyan energy management company, the high energy cost has a significant impact on food prices that in most cases fuel food insecurity. The UN, on the other hand, has categorized Kenya as a water scarce country, prompting the government to come up with National Policies on Water Resources Management and Development. Agriculture uses approximately 21% of food production energy – which equals 2.1 quadrillion Btu of energy each year. Kenya’s agro-processing industry owing to high cost of energy and water scarcity has remained below the expected performance at 3% per annum. Other factors that have contributed to this low performance include;

• Lack of capacity especially in energy and water efficient best practices
• Gender inequality
• Climate change due to increased greenhouse gases emissions

The East Africa regional Innovation Hub and Eenovators Limited, therefore designed a project dubbed An ESCO model for energy efficiency in Kenya to provide solutions to these pressing problems.