Thriving clean energy ventures are driven by more than lust for profit

A story is told of how about 80,000 villages in India that had no electricity and clean running water were transformed into the equivalent of small sophisticated settlements with everything from clean tap water, to use of biodiesel, and replacement of kerosene lanterns with LED lanterns.

The icing on the cake was the villagers owning and running the renewable energy installations themselves.

They have moved from squalor to hope within five years.

Our country has far less villages, but we have been unable to attain even a fraction of the success that India has achieved in the renewable energy space.

The philosophy that entrepreneurs have embraced in India is that the renewable energy business has to be approached as a social business rather than applying a hard-nosed capitalistic approach.

In other words, successful renewable energy projects are driven by more than the anticipation of profits.

They are motivated by a higher social purpose where the success of the projects is determined by the positive impact they have on local communities.

This philosophy is grounded in the principle of the double bottom line.

That is, implementing projects with social purpose that are also motivated by profit.

A similar project, albeit in a different category, is the case of mobile telephony in Bangladesh.

A Bangladeshi millionaire narrated how his sister almost died because of inadequate communication in his rural home where his family was unable to call for help when she fell ill.

Cushy job

His conscience took the better of him and he resigned from his cushy job to start a for profit mobile telephone company in partnership with Grameen Bank.

The initiative has resulted in a large segment of previously marginalised rural folk to be empowered through the use of daily rented mobile phones which they can use to conduct business as well as gain access to information on prices of goods in the market as well as access to other relevant information.

Locally, it is interesting to note that it is high premium businesses that are aggressively leveraging renewable energy resources and technology in order to enhance their margins.

Clearly, there is a big untapped opportunity to exploit if entrepreneurs can have an enabling environment where profitable renewable energy opportunities far outweigh inherent risks.

Our sunny skies and wide open spaces provide ample raw material to harvest both wind and solar energy.

However, entrepreneurs are still dogged by the existence of conservative banking institutions that are innovation shy and have cold feet in regard to extending credit to untried and tested business models.

The question of sharing profits between rural beneficiaries and entrepreneurial benefactors is another thorny issue bearing in mind the realities of development politics.

Public coffers

This scenario leaves the government with no option but to dig into public coffers to finance renewable energy projects which would otherwise have been efficiently implemented and managed by entrepreneurs.

It also enables philanthropic organisations such as the Gates Foundation to expand their footprint across economic sectors which could otherwise have been self sustaining if they were run by private enterprise.

Presumably, our dons at local universities who influence curricula will encourage students to take up degree courses in engineering and other disciplines that will increase the supply of expertise and competency in the field of renewable energy technologies in the not too distant future.

There is no reason why Kenya should not be a leader in the generation of renewable energy resources over the coming decades.