Access to Energy: working with your local community
Posted by EnAct Consulting on Thursday, December 01, 2011
Location
Africa and latin America
Link
www.gvepinternational.org
Full Details
Assisting project managers to deliver results: for their companies and their communities.
CSR has become recognised as an essential part of modern corporate life, particularly for energy / oil & gas companies, operating in less economically developed countries, who must increasingly establish their credentials as contributors to the local communities where they work.
Licence terms and conditions set by the government will require companies to meet certain criteria in helping the local community long before the project starts. Funding conditions, such as the IFC Sustainability Guidelines and the Equator Principles, require these companies to undertake Social and Environmental Impact Assessments to ensure that there is a minimum negative impact on the community.
As a result, companies will have their own Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) / Sustainability objectives aimed to help the project align with and provide for the local community. However, a new project means a new team, a new country, different cultures and local politics.
Why energy? Long left on the back-burner of the list of global priorities, energy and its ability to touch on multiple aspects of life are now coming to the fore, so much so that the UN General Assembly declared 2012 the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. Without the input of modern energy, efforts to see all eight of the UN Millennium Development Goals come to fruition cannot happen. For example, lack of access to modern energy services also impacts communities negatively in the following ways:
- no proper lights, therefore children cannot do their homework;
- inefficient cooking stoves that are damaging to health by creating household air pollution;
- curtailing access to modern communications such as mobile phones;
- inadequate power to run critical equipment in health facilities
The disparity between the project and local community becomes increasingly apparent as the project progresses. The emphasis shifts to deadlines and budgets whilst ensuring local interruptions and delays are kept to a minimum. Getting this right is a sensitive issue and achieving a balance creates a requirement for different types of experience, skills, and expertise that oil and gas companies, by and large, do not have.
NGO’s not only have considerable local expertise and experience in these areas but provide much needed services to poor rural communities. These NGO’s can act as strategic partners, which would help oil & gas companies implement programmes that not only meet the immediate needs but also fit with the company’s broader based CSR objectives. Used to working with large organisations and funded by the unilateral and multilateral donors (such as the UN and the DFID), they understand the corporate environment and the need for proper reporting on the use of funds and results.
One such organisation is GVEP, which provides a key service for any developing community: the provision of access to energy. GVEP is an international non-profit organisation which helps implement energy-related projects providing reliable electricity for rural and per-urban communities in developing countries and thus improving the quality of people’s lives, stimulating growth as well as reducing poverty. GVEP are seeking to leverage their expertise by developing a partnership network, and support companies working in the region through the provision of electricity to rural communities which will provide immediate benefits to the communities in which they work. GVEP activities are particularly relevant to energy companies.
The provision of electricity, particularly when delivered through local small and medium enterprises’, helps support many corporate social responsibility objectives, not least:
- Leadership, enterprise development and local jobs.
- Sustainable energy and improved environmental conditions.
- Improved conditions for education, healthcare and security
- All leading to longer term economic development
1.4 billion people around the world lack access to electricity - 85% of them living in rural areas.
To date GVEP has achieved:
- About 1.5 million people with improved access to clean energy and/or more efficient energy appliances
- More than a hundred small businesses achieving fast growth
- 500 new jobs created
- 200,000 T CO2 avoided
Thiba community hydro project – a case study
GVEP is working with a rural community in Kirinyaga located in the central part of Kenya. Plagued by the all-too-common problem of lack of reliable and affordable access to the main electricity grid, a few members took the initiative to find a solution. In 2003 thy founded the Thiba Micro Hydro Power Project (MHHP) – a Community Based Organisation (CBO) tasked to generate electricity for those in the surrounding areas who wished to join as members.
The members of the Thiba MHPP raised Ksh 13 million (app 13,000 Euros) to implement their project, which currently supplies power 180 households with a 13kW turbine/generator. This has the capacity to scale up power provision for at least 500 households. However, they need access to further finance – an additional Ksh 5.8 million to deliver the expansion and for rehabilitation and restructuring. Acknowledging that finance is an issue that is poorly addressed by the private sector and that sustainability is key to the development of the project, GVEP is working with Thiba in the following ways:
- Support the project by providing access to finance through a loan. This has been made possible through a grant programme funded by Barclays PLC;
- Provide assistance to rehabilitate the current infrastructure and provide technology training as it became evident there was a deep need for such expertise;
- Provide assistance with setting up a limited liability company with an effective governance structure including a non-executive board and small management team;
- Develop a financial plan for the site to ensure ongoing costs of operation and maintenance are covered by revenue;
- Identify more productive use customers who can be connected to boost revenues.
Some of the other direct benefits members have voiced as a result of this Project include:
- The ability to prepare meals faster in order to focus on other activities such as tea leaves-picking;
- No hindrances that come with using biomass and other forms of fuel such as kerosene which is also not cost-effective;
- The opportunity to operate equipment such as TVs, radios and lights;
- Diversifying their personal income streams through activities such as poultry farming;
- Looking forward to operating mills and power tools in line with farming and agriculture.
GVEP is looking to support companies developing projects in the regions where they operate and provide real solutions to problems that contractors and developers find complex and time consuming. GVEP have the skills and the local experience to add real value to the community and the project. It’s a clear win for all parties; please get in touch and let us know your project commitments and plans. Think of us as a strategic service provider at the heart of your project.
Ben Good CEO, GVEP International
Office: +44 (0) 207 713 8246
Mobile: +44 (0) 7885 316447
Email: Ben.Good@gvepinternational.org
Tom Peyton,MD EnAct Consulting Ltd.
Office:+44 (0) 207 787 6616
Mobile:+44 (0) 7768 665339
E-mail: tom@enactconsulting.com
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Company News Release