MP Nyeko Johnson Kezekiya turns farm waste into power, lights up Nwoya.
By Okidi Patrick
Nwoya — Lamwo County MP Hon Nyeko Johnson Kezekiya is transforming lives in Nwoya District after turning agricultural waste into clean, affordable electricity for rural households.
For the people of Nwoya, MP Nyeko’s innovation is not just generating electricity. It is generating jobs, health, business and hope.3
Hon Johnson Kezekiya the aerospace engineer, purchased 50 acres of land in Got Ngur Village, Purongo Sub-County, to set up a biomass electricity generation firm under Mandulis Energy Limited. The project is now lighting homes, powering businesses and changing the economic fortunes of the area.
Mandulis Energy has set up a 50KW mini-grid power station which generates electricity through a hybrid process of gasification and solar photovoltaic technology.
Biomass gasification is a mature technology that uses a controlled process involving heat, steam and oxygen to convert biomass into hydrogen and other products, without combustion. This produces a synthetic gas that powers an engine to generate electricity.
The electricity is generated from agricultural waste, including maize husks, groundnut shells, sim-sim stems and maize cobs, among others.
Engineer Peter Nyeko, the Mandulis Energy Technical Team leader, explained that they take the waste and bake it at high temperatures to break it down into gas, which can power a generator. The gas is cleaned, filtered and fed into a generator, which then produces electricity.
In the first two years since its inception, Mandulis Energy offered free electricity connections to more than 180 households and set up two processing plants within Olwiyo and Purongo Sub Counties.
Currently, consumers pay Shs930 per unit through a postpaid system and can light their homes and use electric appliances at any time.
MP Nyeko while speaking to our reporter recently, said the need for clean energy in rural areas defined their intervention, as well as the need to save the environment from depletion.
He said their focus is to ensure they deliver electricity that is affordable, reliable and sustainable to power economic development. From managing agricultural waste and reducing reliance on unclean energy sources, locals now use power from the plant for lighting, water pumping, milling and production of clean cooking fuel, while the refuse is transformed into fertiliser.
Nyeko, the co-founder of Mandulis Energy, said their goal is to develop and uplift people from lower to higher levels through power generation.
The energy firm has been licensed by government through the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) to operate for 21 years and to ensure that everything the village community needs in terms of electricity is provided.
10,000 families targeted
Mandulis Energy has also set up a power regulating transformer to ensure that the required amount of electricity is supplied and to avoid voltage irregularities.
The company also wants to pave the way for sustainable energy solutions through the production of briquettes instead of firewood and charcoal, and targets connecting at least 10,000 families.
The benefiting areas include Got Ngur, Olwiyo and Purongo, where families, shops, mills, schools, business centres and two agricultural industrial hubs have been connected to the mini-grid.
Several beneficiaries in Got Ngur Village, said he has been able to establish a salon and barber shop due to the consistent and reliable power supply from Mandulis Energy Limited. He is also able to sell his agricultural waste.
On affordability, he said the power is convenient compared to solar systems and electricity from the main grid.
Rose a beneficiary from Paromo in Purongo Sub County, said the project has contributed to business growth because it lights up the area throughout the day and night.
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