Nyeri Coffee Factory Goes Solar to Reduce Energy Expenses

Kiandu Coffee Factory in Nyeri has also adopted power conservation methods such as installing solar panels to reduce energy bills.

This equipment, which costs Sh30 million, is a solar eco pulping machine that uses less power and also minimal water during the processing of the coffee cherry, and it will benefit over 5,000 farmers.

The new system provided by Coffee Marketing Services Self Africa has cut this cost to Sh1,500 for an hour as an improvement over the previous Sh500, 000 monthly electricity bill to Kenya Power.

“This machine will only use two litres of water to pulp coffee one kg of cherry as opposed to the old disc machine which uses 20 litres for the same job, it has also capacity for generation of 46 kilowatts of power which means they can. Pulp their produce for 24 hours cheaply,” said Kamau Kuria, CMS manning director.

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Kamau noted that while the disc machines crack beans during pulping, the latest unit does not, allowing farmers to sell adulteration free products.

The solar equipment installed by Engineer Peter Ndumia indicated that the machinery has a capability of 46 Kilowatts and can process coffee even in the absence of light.

“This coffee season we are sure we will pay our farmers well with a saving of ksh 1500 an hour. We are sure that if your operation costs are going down, then we have no reason to pay well,” said the factory chairman Albert Muriuki.

Kiandu coffee farmers prepare more than 3 million KGS of cherry annually, but most farmers have been receiving less than 100 shillings per kilo of coffee-pulp delivered.