It is exactly one month since government marked the Energy Efficiency Week under the theme: “You Can Save Energy: Save it Now and Save Money.”
The events were intended to educate the public on the significance of energy conservation. But a month after the event, do Ugandans have anything to show they benefited from the week-long celebrations?
For Joyce Kahumura, the current high power tariffs coupled with increasing domestic power demand is enough to cause power users to adopt energy saving techniques. “From the time Umeme increased power tariffs, life has been challenging,” Kahumura, in her early 30s says.
“I had to abandon the use of some of my cooking electrical appliances and resorted to using Jikos (locally made charcoal stoves) to reduce my power bills. They had become too high for me.” She says the clay-made Jikos are energy conservers and are environmentally clean. She has a number of Jikos of different sizes, which help her cooking at home.
Kahumura buys the charcoal stoves from traders in Mbale and one of the businessmen who spoke to Smart Money, Benson Wanjala, says with increased adoption of the stoves as a means of countering the high electricity rates; their business is trooping towards success.
“We formed a group in 2004 and started making the stoves under a shade,” the leader of the five-man group says. “The capital was limited and we did everything manually. But as people started buying the stoves we got money and bought a machine that helps us in mixing the clay and in curing the stoves.”
An improved stove that uses 50 per cent of the charcoal used by the ordinary stove. Using more efficient energy sources could save you money and protect the environment as well.
Mr Wanjala says the group makes about fifty stoves a day and they sell at Shs1000 each. He says the low product price is discouraging members to continue with the business because of the limited returns. He however, insists they would expand it and maximise sales.
Mr Nelson Orama, the head of a youth association that makes kilns (local cooking ovens) for schools and is based in Jinja says improved stoves are the way to go given the current high power charges. “They (improved stoves) are very economical when it comes to energy consumption,” the Makerere University Information Communications Technology degree holder says.
According to Mr Orama, the stoves are advantageous because they use less charcoal compared to metallic stoves and thus economise money spent on charcoal. They are also safe to use since they are insulated and are less likely to cause burns besides cooking fast as they retain heat in the metallic lining.
A recent statement from the Ministry of Energy said that, improved stoves are cost-effective given that they reduce heat loss by more than 50 percent. “It makes a lot of economic sense to buy an improved cooking-stove which saves about 50 per cent of the charcoal used by the ordinary stove,” the statement reads in part. “This stove is able to save energy because it is well insulated with a ceramic lining.”
The five-page document says a consumer using a metallic stove would need twice the amount of charcoal to power it compared to the improved model.
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