Switch to biofuels will delay by two years

Kenya’s switch to green energy— thanks to blending of petrol with ethanol— is going to delay by up to two years, a government agency dealing with the project has said

By WALTER MENYA | Business Daily Africa | February 26 2010

Mumias Sugar Company factory. More investors are need to diversify into ethanol production to drive the biofuels programme. Photo/ANTHONY KAMAU

The guidelines on blending that was planned to take off on Monday are not ready and the distillers may lack the technical capacity to undertake the assignment, the National Biofuels Sub-Committee says.

Dr Benard Muok, convener of the sub-committee mandated with formulating a national biofuel policy, says it will take at least three months to have the standards published.

Pilot programme

“The standards that were in use in the 1970s are obsolete and new ones needed to have been formulated. But this is yet to happen,” said Dr Muok.

The Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), the national standards custodian, recently published the draft guidelines and the public will be sending comments until March 4, three days after the date the government set for the blending to take effect.

“This automatically means that the country cannot start running on biofuels; otherwise, what standards would we be applying?” he posed.

“The Ministry of Energy needs to be realistic because the March 1 deadline is not possible. Such a change needs not a week but adequate time so that the industry adjusts.”

The earliest Kebs can finalise the standards, Dr Muok said, is after three months.

According to the convener, even if the guidelines were ready, the project would start on a piloting phase that will be undertaken in western Kenya where the two major distillers Spectre International and Agro-Chemical and Food Company Limited are situated.

A national switch to biofuels, Dr Muok explained, will be realised in 2012 — at the earliest.

With only three days before the deadline set by the government of March 1 expires, the sub-committee said the country was not in a position to begin using biofuels.

Apart from the delay in publishing the new standards for ethanol production, the distillers will have to deal with the logistics of switching to producing power alcohol — the chemical required for blending.

With the new government guidelines, the distillers too will have to effect changes and install equipment for the venture.

At the moment, the distillers have ethanol stocks estimated at 120 million litres, that the expert said would only run a pilot programme.

“Distillers are willing to participate and the government too needs to take an active role to coordinate the private sector players,” he said.

The Western region has become important for the country’s green energy ambitions for its well-developed infrastructure and availability of sugarcane which will be the main feedstock.

Entry point

The International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (Icraf) has completed the initial phase of a mapping that identified Central and the Coastal regions as also having potential for production of at least 11 feedstocks like jatropha, croton, sugar cane, cotton, sunflower, and canola.

Others are sweet sorghum, coconut, pangamia, caster, and cassava.

According to Dr Muok, the presence of sugar industries in Western region means it can offer researchers and the government an entry point.

The Ministry of Energy gazetted regulations for blending petrol with ethanol to produce gasohol in November last year.

While briefing the Press on the progress of privatisation of local sugar industries, Agriculture minister William Ruto emphasised that the new investors would be required to diversify into ethanol production to drive the biofuels programme.

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