Energy access and coffee production in East Africa
- LC Davison
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Energy.
It's something we take for granted in the UK. Here energy access is widespread, and expected as a given whenever we travel within the country. We don't get the sort of chaotic weather that causes outages very often, and when we do a repair job is soon to follow.
The situation is different in East Africa, and a number of the producers that we work with struggle to get themselves a consistent energy supply, regularly dealing with blackouts and fuel shortages as part of day to day life.
To give you an idea of the challenges faced in East Africa when connecting to a consistent power supply, I’ve spoken with 3 of the producers we work with to learn about their different experiences with accessing energy.
Migoti Coffee, Burundi
For around five years now, Burundi has been dealing with a severe fuel shortage which has impacted the entire nation. Petrol is distributed in rations, leaving many unable to get to work or school. Even public transport doesn’t have enough fuel to operate, with timetables greatly reduced if not cancelled altogether.
Where the official market falls short, a black market has emerged, selling fuel for roughly four times the price of standard sourcing channels. Smugglers are acquiring their stock from neighbouring Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo, risking prison or even death as they cross rivers and dodge border security.
In Bujumbura, Migoti Coffee operates two washing stations in Mutambu and Kinama. Built in 2016, the Mutambu station is located close enough to the national grid that the team could install a 700m line connection, though a backup generator is still needed in case of blackouts. The Kinama station however is located too far away from the grid for a connection to be established, and so the entire station is dependent on a generator. Everything from lights, to pulping, to lab operations is powered by the fuel that Burundi is currently lacking.
Ngila Estate, Tanzania
Despite having gas resources, much of Tanzania's in-country energy production is generated from hydroelectric dams, particularly the Julius Nyerere Station across Rufiji River, which has a capacity of 2115 megawatts.
But even though it’s an excellent source of clean energy, hydropower is naturally reliant on a country’s water levels, making it vulnerable to outages in the face of long dry seasons or droughts.
This was the case in 2018, when a bout of dry weather and blackouts dramatically affected operations at Ngila. As Ngila’s Director Vera Stücker tells us:
“Irrigation systems could not be run reliably, and repeated power interruptions disrupted farm and processing activities. The harvest that season was negatively affected, with reduced and uneven yields and lower consistency in quality. The stress on the plants also negatively influenced the following growth cycle. At one point during that period, the situation was so unstable that we even had to run a generator just to print a single page of paper!”
In order to recover from the ordeal and ensure it would not be a repeat problem, the Ngila team decided to begin investing in energy independence. That year they installed a 40kWh solar panel system to reduce reliance on the national grid, which they plan on expanding soon so that the farm’s irrigation can be run purely on solar power.
Mount Sunzu, Zambia
The big issue for Mount Sunzu is not energy access, but stability.
Roughly 35% of Zambia’s population is connected to the national grid. Of the country’s regions, the Northern Province stands out as having one of the lower connection rates. This is where Mount Sunzu is located.
When Mount Sunzu was first established, the land didn’t even have an access road, let alone a link to the national grid. Getting a power line installed and connected was a process that took many months during 2021, and even after the lights went on energy quality and consistency was not a given. This was a problem for Mount Sunzu because of their irrigation setup: a centre pivot system (sprinklers that rotate around a fixed point). Outages mean that watering becomes uneven, and crop management becomes more complicated.
Luca Costa, Co-Founder of Mount Sunzu says that this is why the team decided to work out a more reliable power source.
“...we focused on irrigation first. In commercial farming, irrigation is one of the biggest energy users, and in Zambia many farms either accept interruptions or rely on diesel generators when grid supply is unstable. Diesel solves one problem, but creates others: high running costs, fuel logistics and added emissions. Our view was that a farm like ours needed a system that was more predictable operationally and less dependent on diesel as the fallback.”
Their solution is a 90 kWp solar system designed to cover a substantial share of the daytime water pumping demand, keeping irrigation running smoothly.
“What the project has shown quite clearly is that the challenge is not only access to electricity, but access to electricity that is stable enough for productive use… on a working farm, stable performance matters more than headline capacity.”
With Mount Sunzu’s focus on sustainable agriculture, it was vital to get this setup to work; not so that it could be the solution to Africa’s power problem, but to show that renewable energy sources can support commercial farming operations and take pressure off of an already strained national network.
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