With the high cost of electricity in the country, a majority of Kenyans have been crippling with huge bills at the end of every year.
However, in a bid to ensure it remains a self-sustaining institution, the Rift Valley Technical Training Institute (RVTTI) has embraced the use of solar energy in some of the areas that have high energy demand.
It is the idea that came as a result of the Eldoret-based RVTTI being a member of UNEVOC, UNESCO's specialized Centre for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) that champions for ‘greening’ of the environment.
According to the institution's Registrar Andrew Too, RVTTI which is also the East and Central Africa Technical institution center of excellence has already phased out the use of firewood in their kitchen and replaced with Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as well as solar energy.
“UNEVOC puts its emphasis on sustainable development and use of green energy. Since we become the network member in 2016, we started embracing green energy that revolved around the use of energy in consideration with the environment,” says Too.
“The first thing we did being a UNEVOC member was to do away with the use of firewood in our kitchen,” he added.
On average, RVTTI with over 5,000 students was using over Sh100,000 monthly on firewood but since shifting to gas, the expenses on energy has dropped to below 50 percent.
Apart from phasing out firewood use, RVTTI has also replaced all its lighting system with the solar energy as well as introducing water heating apparatus to the kitchen, students’ hostels and catering kitchen used for practical’s.
“With the heating apparatus, we use solar to heat water to the temperature ready to be cooked and this saves on gas use in our kitchen. The apparatus is also used to heat water for students enabling them to enjoy a warm shower without having an impact on our electricity budget,” said Too.
Daniel Ruto, the institutions chief caterer says the use of gas and solar energy has made their work easier and faster apart from drastically reducing regular cases of respiratory diseases that were being experienced previously when they were using firewood.
“We nowadays have minimal sick leaves for our staff unlike in the past when it was very regular.” Said Rono.
With the use of solar energy proving a great success, RVTTI is now thinking of putting it even to more use and minimize electricity.
‘We are thinking of expanding the use of solar energy in a way that all lighting needs, computers and light machines during the day will be purely from solar,” said the Institution’s Registrar who noted that solar energy is not as expensive as people think.
‘Solar energy is only expensive on the initial stages but when you look at the long-term benefits it is much cheaper, cleaner and safer energy for use that is environment friend,” he adds.