Cafédirect’s pioneering Kenyan energy saving project

posted at 9:53am, 19 Oct 09 by Cafédirect HQ [ 1 comment ]

To celebrate energy saving week, I wanted to share some of the pioneering environmental work that Cafédirect have been doing with our Kenyan tea partners to save energy.

I had the pleasure of meeting Japheth Sayi, an environmental engineer who works with two of our tea partners in Kenya – Michimikuru and Kiegoi. Cafédirect has been working on environmental improvements with these partners, and we’ve had some great results.

Talking about Michimikuru's energy savings over a cup of Cafédirect's Gold Tea

Japheth’s main role is to help tea factories install systems that help them improve energy efficiency and maximisation of appropriate new energy supply options.

Working with Cafédirect’s Producer Partnership Programme (PPP), Japheth completed an energy audit at Kiegoi and Michimikuru, developed recommendations to implement energy improvements and introduced policy on the environment and energy conservation.

Oil to fuel the factory became prohibitively expensive several years ago. The timber currently used to fuel Kiegoi and Michimikuru is becoming increasingly difficult to find and thus makes very real the risk of escalating deforestation as the factory and community seek a way to run factory machinery to produce tea, heat and light their homes and fuel their cooking. This will have a very real impact on the factory, the community and on long-term development.

Wood storage at Michimikuru - deforestation and energy shortages are a real threat to the lives of smallholder tea farmers in Kenya.

Japheth echoed the concerns of many in the Kenyan tea industry: “Energy and land availability are our biggest concerns with energy utilisation the top issue. The major issue is availability of timber. With Cafédirect’s help, we will be able to turn the tables in the months to come by farming timber and making better use of what we have.”

The impact of the Cafédirect PPP on the work Japheth has been able to do with Kiegoi and Michimikuru has been huge. Before the PPP energy audit, the amount of energy used to produce 180 kg of black tea made was using 1 cubic meter of timber. Since then, energy efficiency measures introduced by implementing the energy audit recommendations have reduced the amount of timber needed by 50%: for every cubic metre of timber burned, 320 kg of black tea can now be produced.

As a direct result of recommendations emerging from the PPP energy audit, an immediate 15% reduction in electricity use was achieved, by replacing inefficient factory machiniery and worn out parts. The factory is working to re-educate its workers to turn off energy sources, especially electricity and steam, when not in use and 90% of Michimikuru light bulbs are now energy-saving, resulting in approximately 12kw saving from approximately 200 light bulbs.

Michimikuru Tea Factory is now able to operate on approximately 70% of the energy it needed previously. This means that, for now, their reliance on timber for fuel has been reduced. Keigoi and Michimikuru are both now considered the benchmark of electricity utilisation and energy efficiency Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). They incur the least expense for energy use of any of the 60 factories run by KTDA Japheth said, “You cannot deny that, because of the Cafédirect Producer Partnership Programme, the Fairtrade factories it works with in Kenya are leading the field on energy efficiency here”.

Japheth Bulali Sayi from Kenya at Cafédirect's offices

“We have managed to reduce the amount of timber we use by 50% and now use 30% less energy than before. This has been a bold achievement, made possible through working with Cafédirect. This has had a direct impact on lowering production costs, which means we are able to make additional payments to our farmers which helps them improve their lives.

Based on the energy audit recommendations we now have plans in place to work to implement alternative energy sources in future, for use by the factory and the community, we are exploring with the Cafédirect PPP team the options of wind and hydro electricity generation.

In the future, we are looking forward to using our Fairtrade Premium payments to implement a long-term strategy of installing alternative energy sources, which will minimise our dependence on oil and timber as much as possible.”