KPLC AND POWER ....2

sometime back I wrote about KPLC and Power. I talked about how the Use of Solar power seem like the most prefered alternative than relying on KPLC due to their unreliability


...sometime back I blogged about KPLC and Power ....http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5046264994435381551#editor/target=post;postID=4908671479268840347


Well now i got a few more prices re solar prices in Kenya. For a start a solar panel can cost anywhere from 30k and you will even get a simple water heating system going for 94k. Please check on www.Nairobi.dealfish.co.ke

There is also the market for backup power. This is surprising over-charged and can understand why most people would not want to get this. For a start a simple 4 hour basic power battery would go for 8k shillings. You would then need a charger which costs 10k to buy and an inverter which costs 17k to purchase. You would then use the three above to charge your battery using electricity and cross your fingers that electricity doesnt dissappear for more than 4 hours. The inverter mentioned above isnt automatic,for an automatic one you need 91k.

Chloride Batteries is the company in this market segment and from what i can see they are paying their foreign owners good money to bring light to poor Africans.

So are there alternatives? Well for a start a computer battery goes for upto 3 hours uncharged and doesnt need an inverter or an additional charger. This gets me thinking that there is an alternative way to store power that doesnt need to be this expensive. Just thinking.....anyone with more info, please dont hesitate to share.

For those in business, power is a big issue. For instance I couldnt buy an egg incubator due to the uncertainity about power. Yet this would have been a profitable venture, but on factoring the above then the ventures profits are well drained into some greedy business owner. But then again all businessmen around here seem to be greed - think of Safcom once upon a time they used to charge an arm and a leg to make phone calls but now thanks to the competition they have brought their prices down.

Food for thought......Power is part of 2030 vision ( that is 18 years away!, about 3 parliamentary terms)