Sugar cane powers small businesses in Uganda

24th September 2009

Simon Harding

A sugar cane factory in Uganda may have found the solution to the country’s chronic power generation problems. The Kinyara Factory in the Masindi region of north-eastern Uganda has been processing raw sugar cane for decades. Once the sugary juices had been removed, the tall, fibrous and inedible cane stalks were simply thrown away. But now Kinyara is using this former by-product to fuel a small power plant, which sells energy to Uganda’s national grid.

Uganda has seen steady economic growth in the past decade, but the country’s power generating capacity has lagged behind growing domestic demand from homes and expanding businesses. Blackouts happen regularly. But, thanks to the Kinyara factory, the nearby town of Kabango enjoys a constant supply of electricity.  ‘There is constant power, there’s no breaking off’, says Onzunda Mohammed, who runs a welding business, ‘we used to waste a lot of time here when there was no power’.  The town’s small businesses are flourishing as a result of the reliable power from the Kinyara plant.

The plant uses natural material rather than fossil fuels to generate its power, which means that it may be eligible for carbon credits. These can be sold onto competitors, generating extra income for the company.  But this is still some distance away says Bryan Jumba, of the East African Energy Technology Network. ‘Some companies are doing this’, he explains, ‘but there has not been widespread systematic documentation to show how much carbon they are saving from going into the atmosphere’.

There are other hurdles for Kinyara to clear: the plant is working below capacity because the nearest electricity-line capable of transferring Kinyara’s full output to the national grid stops 300km short of the plant.  To exploit Kinyara’s full potential the current capacity of the lines serving the plant must be increased tenfold.

The entry of the Kinyara sugar cane factory into the green energy sector is a positive move for both the Ugandan economy, especially small businesses, which cannot afford their own generators. Sugar cane producers and energy providers in Australia have recently implemented a similar strategy, in which dry can stalks are cut and fed into furnaces to generate power, rather than torched in the fields. The ‘annual burn’ is now a thing of the past in many parts of New South Wales and technique is being held up as a model of good practice. Those involved, the NSW Milling Cooperative in partnership with Delta electricity, will provide power for 66,000 homes and save around 400,000 tonnes of carbon annually. The effectiveness of the strategy in Australia highlights its potential in Uganda, where electricity goes a lot further.

Also see: ‘Sugar sweetens Ugandan power supply’, Egon Cossou, BBC News, Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8261458.stm
‘Sugar cane makes power in first-world’, Justin Vallejo, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney). Available at: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/property/sugar-cane-makes-power-in-world-first/story-e6frezt0-1225768416177