Peter Thuo, living in Naivasha (about 80 kms from Nairobi), has been constructing houses since 1986. In November 2009, he was selected and trained in the biogas technology by the Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme. He built his first plant for a neighbor in his home town in January 2010. He completed his 20th plant first week of June 2010 in Naivasha and Kimende, and has three plants currently under construction in Kiambu. In the meantime, he has already secured clients for the coming months. In effect, as soon as he has the space, he will start constructing two other plants in Naivasha while two clients in Kimende are already assembling construction materials on site.
Peter Thuo is very busy and after some hesitation, has decided to disengage from house construction in March 2010. During that month, he realised that biogas sector was offering him more business opportunities than house construction did. He sees the following advantages:
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being a new product and there is less competition in the biogas sector. The market is also very promising in the region as it is the dairy milk belt of Kenya.
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with a total costs of 75,000 Ksh (about 750 Euro) and a subsidy from Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme of 25,000 Ksh (about 250 Euros), the product is affordable to most of the rural households therefore allow a high turnover.
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Labor wise, the construction of a plant is less stressful and less tiresome (no heavy charge to lift), more secure (less risk of accident).
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after paying all the workers, including himself and reinvesting 4 000 Ksh (about 40 Euros) back in the business for the costs promotion, communication and transport, he takes home 10,000 Ksh (about 100 Euros) per plant.
Since March 2010, Peter Thuo has been constructing an average of four biogas plants per month employing one mason and two unskilled labourers per construction site. These masons attended the Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme training of November 2009. The households pay for this labour. Thuo’s objective is to build 80 to100 plants this year. He is aware to able to achieve this target and timely respond to requests from his growing clientele, he needs to construct an average of 10 plants per months. For the short term, he will add two trained masons to his team and set a target of two plans per month for each of them. He will position them in the main towns situated within his market area including Limuru, Kiambu, Naivasha and Nakuru. He will then take a supervisory role. In effect, although demands started from his home town of Naivasha, this is expanding to these four towns.
Thuo attributes this growth to the close partnership with the national biogas programme, the increased level of biogas awareness in the community, and the visible benefits from the completed plants among the pioneer beneficiaries of the programme. His main constraints with this rapid growth of his business are supervision and transportation. For example, the distance between Limuru and Nakuru is over 100km. He has to check all the plants before handing them over to the owners, in addition to being involved in the actual construction. This has made it difficult to effectively supervise other masons especially in the absence of flexible means of transportation. However, there are no doubts that Peter Thuo has foreseen sustained growth in the biogas sector in Kenya, has decided to seize business opportunities provided by Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme, and is moving towards the formation of a biogas construction company!
George Nyamu, Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme National Coordinator (Email: nyamu@kenfap.org)
Caroline Toroitich, SNV Biogas Advisor (Email: ctoroitich@snvworld.org)
Jean Marc Sika, Africa Biogas Partnership Programme Fund Manager (Email: jmsika@hivos.or.ke)