Green Heat Ltd, a 2014 SEED Low Carbon Award Winner, and GRS Commodities Ltd, a 2013 SEED Africa Award Winner, were both winning recipients in the recent Off-Grid Energy Challenge hosted by the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) in Uganda in February. In a country where the vast majority of the population does not have access to electricity, these enterprises seek to bridge the energy gap.

Green Heat installs and markets biogas digests that convert organic material from agriculture and latrines into biogas for cooking and heating purposes. By transforming waste into energy, Green Heat improves local waste management systems while reducing peoples’ dependence on firewood and charcoal and the release of their associated greenhouse gases. With the grant from USADF, Green Heat will install manure-fuelled biogas digesters to pasteurise and chill milk on farms in Eastern Uganda. Farmers currently suffer from product losses due to milk spoilage before it reaches the end user.  Farmers can also use or sell the by-product of the biogas digesters, slurry, as fertilisers.

GRS Commodities promotes off-grid renewable energy in Uganda, and especially applies waste-to-energy concepts such as using agricultural waste from local farms to produce biogas, which is then cleaned into methane. The by-product of the biogas digester, fertiliser, is also used or sold. GRS Commodities ventured into the solar market after meeting fellow 2013 SEED Winner New Sun Road (formerly Southeast Asia Renewable and Adaptive Energy) at the SEED Africa Symposium 2013. The enterprise will use the USADF grant to install an additional 40 kilowatts of solar energy on the Ssese Islands of Lake Victoria where the local community currently relies on fossil fuels for lighting and cooking.

These two enterprises improve access to electricity in off-grid areas of Uganda with renewable energies as the solution.

Read more about the Off-Grid Energy Challenge here.