Hi all,

I have been following up on the latest happenings and services deliveries from our utility companies namely Kengen,Kenya Power and Lighting Company Limited and Nairobi Water Company Limited. I must say that the emerging painted picture of the things to come from them is bleak...very bleak indeed. I see a situation where we will be paying expensively or dearly to be and remain in the dark and for being thirsty...sample this:

Kengen tells us that they have closed the Masinga dam followed by Kaburu because the remaining amount of water cannot sustain a continuous generation of electricity for more than three months. The reason for the low water levels is the drought,with the rains being so erratic and unreliable for a dependable and continuous HEP generation,and no effort has been made in the recent past to come up with other alternative energy sources,or attempts to expand the generation capacity of existing ones where possible.
The worrying thing that they have not told us yet is that Kiambere dam is fed by the same river that feeds Kaburu and it is just a matter of time before Kiambere is closed if the water catchment do not get any rains in the near future.
The story won’t end there because after telling us the sad news,they will start looking for independent power/electricity producers at least to offset the shortfall albeit by a small margin. Once this is in place,we will be told that the unit rate of production by these independent producers (who in effect will be using fossil fuel power generation) is high due to the rising cost of fuel in the international market and as such they will therefore be paying more to these electricity producers. We will also expect that Kengen,apart from maintaining an 'idle' personnel in the payroll in the closed dams,will be incurring exorbitant extra expenditure in maintaining these 'unproductive idle dams' and everything that goes with them.
Eventually the inevitable will happen...Kengen will tell us that the current unit rate sales are impractical and unsustainable and will no longer apply. The unit rates shall require to be adjusted upwards by at least 40% to reflect the added cost of power generation.

Kenya Power and Lighting Company most likely is now preparing to hit us with the normal bucketful of s*** about an impending official power rationing. They will give the same reasons as given by Kengen for the rationing,but the story will not end there. They will tell us that the cost of doing business with Kengen has risen tremendously due to added cost of power generation and that they have renegotiated the purchase price of 1 unit of electricity.
We therefore should brace ourselves for tariff hikes of the order of 60%,but since the electricity shortfall will only have been marginally offset,the blackouts will be extended from a few hours to more hours per day.

Nairobi Water Company & Sewerage Limited the other day told us that Ndaka-Ini dam,the main water source for Nairobi residents,is getting depleted very fast and that the amount of water remaining now cannot sustain a continuous supply for more than six months. The story did not end there coz we already know that the supplementary supply from Susumua dam which is under rehabilitation will become operational sometime in October (if I remember correctly). We are already in the midst of the drought monster and no rain is expected soon.
The NWCL has already started an annoying water rationing programme with residential estates are receiving water for only a day per week or so. If i read correctly it might get worse as the drought continues to bite for the next couple of months and any additional amounts from the rehabilitated dam might not have any significant input into the distribution network. They will probably start telling us that the unit cost of water will have to be adjusted upward to reflect the added cost of power consumption at the pumping stations and treatment works,reduced revenues due to low volumes of water consumed while still maintaining the same size of payroll and the office overheads etc. Eventually they will call a press conference to announce that the unit cost of water has been increased by 40% and that they will extend the water availability frequency period from one day per week to one day per fortnight (two weeks).

The bigger picture...I have tried to understand our peculiar behaviour of not paying attention to simple problems requiring simple solutions and letting them degenerate into monstrous problems requiring expensive solutions...and the best we do is to point fingers at non existent entities.
All along since i was a young boy,the Greenbelt Movement has always told people not to deforest but rather reforest...at one point it became a song that 'if you cut down one tree you plant not less than two'. We used to sing it literally,virtually everywhere,but somehow the song was 'murdered' buried and forgotten as people threw out the caution through the window.
Now less than 20 years down the line,we are experiencing what we were being warned about. I don’t see the situation changing as politics has made everything impossible and complicated starting from settling in the forest land to commercial tree felling in the forests,from where the agents of electricity and portable pure drinking water are derived from. It might take another 40 to 50 years to fix things up and bringing them to the level they were just about 20 years ago in terms of services provision i.e water and electricity. This will only happen if and only if there is a strong political will (which is always lacking) and collective individual responsibilities.

In summary we have already come face to face with perennial energy crunch and pure safe drinking water crisis.

Solution...I am a very angry and bitter man and I will not wait for 40 years for these utility companies to live up to their responsibilities of providing me with reliable electricity and reliable,safe and pure drinking water! Without these I am just as good as dead!!! In fact I will reduce my interaction with KPLC and NWCL more than 95% or better still do without them because their very existence is turning out to be the source of my misery and nightmare. It has to be brought to an end!!!

The plan...Firstly,I will start off by cutting off the services from NWCL by 90%. How? I will put up an underground tank with a enough capacity and I will start a serious rain water harvesting. To each of the five lives in my household I will allow 100 litres per day giving 500 litres for each day. For the kitchen,toilet and laundry I will allow an average of 150 litres making a total of 650 litres per day. Next,this daily volume shall be available continuously for a period of six months making a total of 117,000litres or 117m3. The underground tank will have a capacity of 120 m3. I will not expect this volume to be fully exhausted because the 5% service from NWCL will fill the gap in case of prolonged drought lasting more than an year and a half with no rain. If the initial observations show that the contents of the tank could last at least nine months continuous extraction without any replenishment,then I will advise the NWCL to remove their water meter and take it away!

Secondly...KPLC allows about 4KVA worth of diversified load for a residential household,which works out to 3.2kW. I will then go ahead and procure and install photovoltaic solar panels in two phases enough to provide my household with 3.2kW available power. The first phase will involve the procurement of 1.6kW panels and 3.2kW load delivery capability batteries,charge controllers,and all the wiring. Phase two will involve just the procurement of the other 1.6kW set of panels. This will be enough to do all the domestic activities that require electricity,e.g ironing,lighting,microwave,water heating,electric kettle,etc. I am very sure that the installed capacity will be large and most of the day a small fraction of it will be used while in the evenings (early evening) a large fraction of it will be in use. I would consider selling to KPLC during the 'off peak' (about 10 hours) period but the monthly income from it would not be worth it. So,I would opt to sell to the neighbours whom I am sure would be ready to pay well. I will have gained independence from the unreliable power supply from the KPLC!

I believe this will be one long painful journey considering the financial implications and my own personal commitment but the long term benefits will be enormous.


NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB