- WES aims to implement a program to distribute cleaner cooking solutions to at least 1,500 households.
- The project is also part of a partnership dubbed Enabling African Cities for Transformative Energy Access (ENACT).
Wana Energy Solutions (WES) aims to implement a program to distribute cleaner cooking solutions to at least 1,500 households in the Kisenyi area in Kampala Central, Uganda. The solutions include a Light Petroleum Gas (LPG) stove, gas cookers, energy-saving stoves, briquettes, and electric pressure cookers.
This, among other solutions, the promoters say will target and be convenient for low-income earners in Kampala. Emmy Wasira, the Founder and Chief Executive of WES Energy, says they first understood what most people in the area earn and how much they spend on cooking before coming up with the model.
He says that under the hire purchase plan, where one pays 1,600 shillings, it becomes cheaper because, under the usual energy they use, mainly charcoal, they spend more than that. Wasira says they realised that most of the communities in the target area could not afford to purchase a unit at once because of their income, yet they were spending a lot on daily fuel supplies.
In 2017, the same company and the Uganda National Alliance on Clean Cooking pioneered a pay-as-you-go solution, which provided a metering gas cooking solution. But Wasira says this has been convenient for smaller households and was not popular among the bigger families, hence the decision to develop the new affordable and convenient project for most families in the slummy area.
He says that apart from the convenient payment methods, they have door-to-door delivery services to make access easy and free refilling when the cylinder runs out of gas. Last year, the government launched a program to demonstrate and promote clean energy solutions, especially LPG gas, implemented in the Grater Kampala areas.
The project is also part of a partnership dubbed Enabling African Cities for Transformative Energy Access (ENACT), which receives funding from donors like Transforming Energy Access by USAID, Energy for Impact, and Local Governments for Sustainability.
The ENACT project is creating an enabling environment for providing adequate, safe, reliable, clean, and affordable energy and clean cooking in informal settlements, targeting over 2000 households and 600 micro-enterprises in Kampala and the Sierra Leone capital, Free Town.
Brian Isabirye, the Commissioner Renewable Energy Department in the Ministry, says that these initiatives will turn around energy use in Uganda and that as more people afford renewable energy, it will ultimately contribute to the protection of the environment by reducing the number of trees being cut for charcoal.