Tony Nyagah’s project as a master student aimed to solve some of the most important energy problems in the world today through solar energy.
For one, he wanted to provide clean energy to households, and secondly there was a need to cover households from perennial power blackouts by providing reliable electricity.
Most people especially in rural Kenya and other parts of Africa rely on solar panels that are mounted on the roof tops to recharge alkaline batteries that are then used at night to provide lighting.
Advent of Solar tiles roofing in Kenya
Engineer Nyagah thought there was a more convenient and reliable way to power households by creating solar tiles that would form part of the roofing instead and provide more power not just for lighting but powering appliances and machines throughout the day.
He teamed up with his sister architect Charity Wanjiku who helped in perfecting the design of the solar tile, and together they founded Strauss Energy in 2013.
By the time the world was going abuzz in October 2016 about the solar roofing technology announced by SolarCity and Tesla, Strauss Energy had already roofed Gaitheri Secondary School in Murang’a County with 2.5kWh solar system using a grant from the United Nations Development Fund. According to the Headteacher at the time, Mr Lawrence Gaitho, the school hardly noticed the frequent blackouts that hit the country in August of the same year.
The computer lab at the rural school became fully functional and the worries for possible blackouts became history.
Wanjiku was also already pitching to investors at the Stanford University during the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University under the Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) Network program pioneered by president Barack Obama.
It is important at this point to note that Kenya has made great strides in clean energy and efficiency and has the largest geothermal power plant in Africa.
Power blackouts have now become rare and the integration of off-grid energy solutions like solar tiles is effectively fighting energy poverty.
According to Wanjiku, the vision to “annihilate extreme energy poverty by converting freely available clean energy into passive income” is a reality.
The main challenge of clean energy is its high cost at the first installation.
Solar tiles technology in Kenya currently costs KES 2,000 ($20) – KES 15,000 ($150) (VERIFY PRICE WITH STRAUSS) depending on the size and capacity of the tile.
Capacity ranges from 8W – 150W.
Comparatively, Elon Musk’s solar tiles cost $1.80 per Watt, making a 7 Watt tile to cost around $12.6.
With most households requiring a minimum of 2.5kWh, Strauss solar tile have the capability of producing 9kWh of power, which is three times more.
This would require at least a third of your roof which is covered by solar tiles to be exposed to the sun for about 5 – 6 hours in order to produce around 5kWh.
The cost for the installation is therefore anywhere near KES 2 million, but Wanjiku is confident the client would recoup this investment which is approximately 10% – 20% higher within utmost seven years.
In the quest to make tangible steps towards renewable energy use, Kenya passed a law in 2017 requiring particular new buildings to install solar water heaters.
A quick scan around Nairobi shows many buildings have already implemented this requirement, no matter whether they use the photovoltaic solar panels or the Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) tiles.
SOURCES:
Kenyan firm beat Tesla to solar roofing tiles – The Standard (standardmedia.co.ke)
Solar roof tiles help power this secondary school in rural Kenya (inhabitat.com)
Tesla’s new solar roof tiles are perfect for South Africa (mybroadband.co.za)
Strauss Energy | Powering Africa. Lighting Up the World
Design your Solar + Powerwall system | Tesla
Tesla Solar Roof Cost in 2023 Compared to Conventional Solar (solarreviews.com)
