Powerfarm: a renewable energy system for off-grid communities

The Powerfarm project is a clean, multi-energy pilot initiative that integrates solar, wind and anaerobic digestion technologies to provide reliable, renewable energy for off-grid communities in rural Tanzania.

Many farming communities across eastern Africa lack access to affordable, reliable electricity or gas services. In fact, only 7% of Tanzanians have reliable grid electricity.

Unreliable electricity makes it hard for farmers to make a profit without the power needed to irrigate, store, process and transport their produce.  As a result, communities depend heavily on costly, polluting fossil fuels for transport and agricultural machinery and on wood fuel for cooking, contributing to deforestation and health risks from indoor pollution.

In Morogoro, Tanzania we’re working with Aegis Energy on the Powerfarm project, which combines solar, wind and farm waste to generate off-grid clean energy, allowing farmers to charge electric motorbikes and gutas (three-wheeled motorised vehicles for cargo carriage), power agricultural processing tools and water pumps, and switch to smoke-free cooking.

Sited in Msowero village, Kilosa District, the project is being implemented in partnership with HIMANA Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society, which serves 500 local farmers. The lessons learnt will inform the scaling and replication of these solutions across other rural communities, while promoting climate action, sustainable livelihoods and gender-inclusive development.

The project is funded by Innovate UK under the SBRI Pre-Commercial Procurement framework and implemented in partnership with Farm Africa and the following technology providers:

·        Aegis Energy Ltd (lead)

·        Economad Solutions Ltd (anaerobic digestion / biogas)

·        Tilt House Ltd (energy communications/behaviour change)

·        Nomad Engineering R&D (integration of multi-energy solutions)

·        KOC Bridges to Peace (Energy-in-a-Box wind turbines)

·        WAGA Technologies (Local PV, battery, EV charging solutions)