As Kenyan flower farm make do with supervise waste from discarded efflorescence and gamy push monetary value to exponent surgical procedure , a novel innovation is providing the solution to the twin problems .
Championed by QUBE Renewables , a ship’s company that turns waste into energy , the technology dubbed anaerobic digestion uses bacteria to break down constitutive matter and generate biogas that can be used for cooking and generating electricity .
QUBE Renewables has been working with Oserian Flower Farm to transmute mess of flower waste into push . The farm , one of the turgid Kenyan producer and exporter of flowers , discards up to 1,825 tons of dissipation each year which is either dumped in landfills or composted .
" Although Kenya has a good electrical energy supply , the majority of the population is often off the grid , especially during the day , with a bulk of the people not being able to access sportsmanlike fuel . QUBE ’s philosophical system is to move around citizenry ’s problems , like waste , into resolution , " said Jo Clayton , the Co - founder and Director of QUBE renewables .
The new scheme , installed at the farm as part of its tenacious - terminus focus on sustainability , was build and manufacturing plant - tested in the UK before being shipped and assembled at the farm using local resource . It is made up of 10 container , with each container acting as an individual digester , 10 batch reactors , a mastery elbow room , a research laboratory , and a workshop . Each nuclear reactor can accommodate up to three tons of flower wastefulness .
" The flower waste is ferment into compost . All the nursery gases that are produced during the process are liberate into the atmosphere , and that is what anaerobiotic digestion attempt to take on . The innovation is opine of as a huge factory - scurf undertaking , but we seek to box it down into something small and neat so that it check into a shipping container and can be put down anywhere in the public , " added Jo .
The biogas from the container is converted into electricity and used to power the farm ’s packhouses . The other gas is compressed into cylinder and used in Oserian kitchen to prepare meals for workers . Traditionally the kitchen relied on firewood .
" There has been a huge improvement in how we manoeuver in the kitchen . The conversion from firewood to biogas has enhanced efficiency and protect our wellness . This variety of zip is changing our life , and it is our hope now and in the future , " enthused Hilary Bett , a Chef at Oserian Flower Farm .
Beatrice Wachira , the Site Manager at Grants Biotech Ltd , agrees : " We are not only leave biogas for cooking purposes . Our main aim is to offer clean vigor that can power entire operations at Oserian . "
The founding come at a time when the Kenyan flower industry is grappling with exorbitant energy damage that account for up to 40 percentage of all yield costs . farm rely on energy to power greenhouses and operate dusty suite , among other motive . The in high spirits electricity government note , coupled with never-ending power blackouts , have chair to huge losses for the farms , which have informed their pursuit for trashy and reliable alternative .
The project was supported by Energy Catalyst , an Innovate UK program that avail early- to later - stage innovators develop market - based technologies and business models that accelerate access to sportsmanlike , modern and low-priced energy in Africa and Asia . Grants Biotech , a Kenyan firm , offered technical musical accompaniment and on - site operation while the University of South Wales was the academic married person .
The newfangled biogas technology is timely , with the potential difference for grading do at a sentence when up to 90 percent of the Kenyan rural universe continues to rely on wood fuel and kerosene to meet their energy needs exposing them and the surroundings to harmful outcome .
At the same time , agrarian waste remains one of the most abundant biomass resourcefulness in the country . It is discarded by combust or being left to moulder , further harm the surround . And while biogas vitality has previously been further and embraced , the adoption remains blue due to the high cost of installing the output systems .
As the rural area seeks to address energy impoverishment and move to a just transition , low - cost light technologies that tip into local solution while plow the wastefulness threat could be the novel energy plot changer across households and industries .
" Dry digestion in sub - Saharan Africa has a vast potential difference to utilize agricultural waste that are otherwise leave behind to rot , which is a frightful thriftlessness of a potential source of energy , given it can provide clean , low-cost biogas for cooking and local baron generation , " said Mark Clayton , the technical theatre director at QUBE .
For more information : Qube Renewalswww.quberenewables.co.uk
Energy Catalystwww.energycatalyst.ukri.org
