Solar Kyenturegye Cooperative

Environmental

The switch to solar energy will allow the cooperative to run on clean energy only, eliminating the diesel consumption – a reduction of 3,800 liters a year that will avoid the emission of 10.2 tons of CO2/year.

Social

An estimated 34% of Uganda’s population lived under the poverty threshold of US$1.90 a day, in 2016. Nevertheless, it is the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa. This project will improve the living conditions of the population served by the cooperative.

• Better working conditions: by increasing the lighting around the plant with external safety lights, the cooperative members will have longer operation hours especially loading milk to the buyers’ trucks during late evenings. The installer has already installed 2 street lighting modules at the facility at no extra cost.
• Greater financial autonomy: with one farm having about 50 farmers, it is estimated that 3,500 small farmers will be positively affected by this project. The current income earned by milk producers is not enough to give them financial autonomy, which will be obtained with a better energy supply that will decrease the cooperative's costs.
• More gender equality: the cooperative has 12 women, two of them in the leadership of the council who will benefit from training. 
• Job generation: by building reliable and sustainable infrastructure, this project will motivate more farmers to take up lucrative dairy businesses in Uganda, hence creating direct and indirect jobs (estimates point to over 1,200). Technical jobs will also be created in the solar sector to trained technicians and local people who will be trained to operate and maintain the solar plants.
• Estimates point to 10% of all milk production in Kyenturegye being wasted due to lack of timely cooling. Solar cooling technologies can provide consistent cold storage for areas with no or unreliable energy access, offering significant impact potential.

Founded in 2017, SolarPipo BV is a Dutch holding company, based in Amsterdam. Its shareholders are Ugandan nationals and two Dutch companies - Rockstart BV and Beehaeve. To better deal with all the funding aspects of the group, the holding company created SolarPipo Finance BV, which in turn owns 100% of SolarPipo Finance Limited in Uganda. The latter contracts directly with the dairy cooperatives.

SolarPipo’s main goal is to ease access to renewable energy for the country’s dairy sector. The company provides its customers, typically dairy cooperatives and farmers, access to a cost-effective and reliable alternative to the grid or diesel generators. Their services answer to the whole sector’s value chain: from the financing to the solar system design and installation; to the technical assistance and system maintenance.The SolarPipo team, currently composed of seven people, has a combined experience of over 8 years in the renewable energy sector, product development and management, sales and marketing, team-building skills. Its core has been at the helm of management of startups with a keen eye on innovation.

SolarPipo Finance BV was founded in April 2020. The majority of the shares belong to its Dutch shareholders, with a combined 60 years of experience with Rockstart having the most relevant experience in smart energy ventures and startups.

Dairy farmers’ cooperatives are a growing and very important business sector (10% of the economy) combined with the milk processing industries and transport needed to bring the cooled milk from the farms to the processors. Usually, the milk coolers use sizeable diesel generators for energy. SolarPipo has identified a list of 7 dairy farmers who cannot wait to stop using diesel generators consuming vast amounts of diesel (which can grow easily to significantly higher numbers). Also, there are at least 100 cooperatives on the list of potential customers but also numerous other parties in the dairy sector value chain.