Izzy Projects is helping to power Africa using wind energy for tea factories in Kenya. The brain behind the scheme, Pim de Ridder, learned his expertise working previously at a Dutch wind energy company.
de Ridder told How We Made It in Africa that the Kenyan government paved a way to make the Eastern African market more appealing. He said, “Kenya is one of the countries where we identified the combination of those three factors: wind resources in some places compete with the best wind in the world, continuous rising demand for electricity, and the country investing hugely in the development of transmission networks.”
Izzy Projects chose Kenyan tea factories to begin their wind power movement. de Ridder said, “This structural factor creates opportunities for a good wind energy project and combined with the willingness and openness from the involved tea estates, makes the tea factory market in Kenya a good start for exploring self-generation with wind turbines.” He admits that the market is challenging as currently Kenya only has six turbines installed and producing energy into the grid – although the country has been attempting to complete the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project which would be the largest wind farm in the continent.
The Izzy Project creator added, “An absolute pro of doing business in Kenya is the willingness [for the market] to adopt and implement projects like these.”
Make sure you visit and click ‘Like’ on our Facebook page to receive even more news and updates from Alternative Energy Africa.