SOLAR HEATING MANUAL LAUNCHED

Officials from the National and County government viewing a solar heating panel at the Wote TTI

Kenya has not harnessed most of its potential solar energy despite receiving heavy doses of radiation, Principal Secretary of Environment and Forestry Ali Noor Ismail says.

The country lacks experts to carry out installation, maintenance and repair of solar heating systems the PS observed.This has led the country to have insignificant harnessing of the renewable energy despite the high potential Mr. Ismail added.

His remarks were made in speech read on his behalf during the launch of a solar water heating manual at Wote Technical Training Institute today. It was read by Dr. Charles Mutai, the Director of Climate Change in the Ministry.He said that Kenya receives solar radiation of 4-6 kilowatt hour per square meter per day which was adequate for both lighting and water heating applications across the country. He noted that Kenya was proud to have renewable energy that constituted about 70 percent of the country’s installed electric power from sources such as solar energy.

Mr. Ismail observed that clean and efficient energy systems provided solutions to mitigation of climate change alinfside enhancing mitigation. He said climate change was one of the most serious challenge Kenya faced in the recent years with unprecedented impact through social economic losses. The PS enumerated the economic sectors of Agriculture, livestock, tourism, forestry and fisheries as among those facing the devastating impacts of climate change.

“The increasing instensity of extreme climate change events threaten the attainment of the country’s vision 2030 and suatainable development goals” mr. Ismail added.

To mitigate against these effects the PS ssid that Kenya had developed a robust policy and legislative frameworks that addressed the uptake of solar energy technologies.

The solar water heating manual to be used for training technicians were distributed to 10 Technical Training Institutes across the country.The manuals were developed by a team of experts headed by scientists from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology under the Low Emissions Climate Resilient Development program in the Ministry

The launch was attended by Prof. Robert Kinyua, the deputy vice. Chancellor incharge of academics at JKUAT, Makueni County Commissioner Maalim Mohammed, Wote TTI Principal Felix Mung’ato , Dr. Harun Warui the project Manager of Low Emissions Climate Resilient Development program among others.

A group photo of representatives from ten technical training institutes that are piloting the solar heating manual