Concluding remarks

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In addition to the focus on technical design, the other main focus was on the training of the staff, which was going on in parallel. This was also led by the same Kenyan team member. The training included several different aspects of the operation, from technical working of the system to balancing of revenue and expenses, as well as operational routines, service delivery to customers and a detailed system for book keeping. The team member invited the staff to suggest improvements in the system design during the training sessions, sometimes even overruling decisions made through the previous, long-term research process and collective considerations. Meetings with the board were held on the first and last day of the installation period.

After the last, hectic clearing, cleaning and putting the last equipment, record books, cash boxes and receipt books in place, the centre was ready to start operating. The prominent idea about the information for community members at start-up was that the local staff would provide the necessary information through their own marketing activities and by explaining the services when people came to the centre to see what it could offer. Therefore, no information meeting with team members present was organized for the community at this point in time. However, the community members would probably have appreciated a meeting, since they were used to getting information from the team during the planning process.

7.5.5. March 20^th 2012: The Energy Centre has started operating

The opening day was a special day for the staff and project team members. Many people came to have a look and ask questions, and the staff did well. The sub-chief was one of the first customers, finally being able to get copies of his papers within a five minute walk from his office. There was no grand opening, since the team found it important to let the staff start getting used to their tasks without a crowd of people around them.

Team members stayed around at the centre for the first 1 ½ days after opening.

Initially they had planned to stay for a week, but this was not possible for different reasons.

An idea was also to let the staff learn through the practical experience of operating the Centre on their own. Perhaps some of the coming challenges could have been discovered at an early stage if they had continued to stay around at the centre for some days. However, this is not possible to know, and the learning process that followed appears to have been useful. At least it came to illustrate some of the complexities of introducing new technologies in the context of existing practices and societal contexts, as will be explained in the next chapter. The challenges forced the involved actors to understand that the ideas that looked so good on paper had to be changed to a larger extent than what they had anticipated.

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back and forth several times. The pathway taken by the team towards the socio-technical design for Ikisaya went out in the open, was searching and explorative, with many unknowns.

A range of contextual factors, limits and uncertainties influenced the emerging solutions and the extent to which the users’ ideas and suggestions for the electricity services had been possible to take into account. The route ended up relatively near something that had been observed at an earlier stage, but not taken so much into account until later, the charging station model (described in Chapter 1). This model had been briefly observed in India. This does not mean that there was little learning from the Sunderban mini-grids or other projects in India, Kenya or elsewhere. Many of the ideas that came up were based on difficulties observed in other projects.

The ideas for the socio-technical design for Ikisaya gradually changed as a consequence of an increasing understanding of the societal context at the local level. The wider framework conditions in Kenya were also kept in mind. It was also influenced by the exchange of ideas, knowledge and experience in the international team, the methods used, including the trans-disciplinary approach and new types of equipment available. Co-incidence, luck, accidental factors and personal relations also played a role. The learning from India was thereby interacting with a range of other factors, knowledge, experience and visions.

The Ikisaya model was developed almost independently, even though it could usefully draw on technical equipment and experience from India. The Indian team member’s familiarity with charging stations gradually became important, and the team was dependent on getting the right technical equipment from India. The Ikisaya model nevertheless differed significantly from both models seen in India, both the one thoroughly studied and the one briefly observed and later further explained by the Indian team member. Thus some “new combinations” had been created.

There were both similarities and differences between the Sunderban example and the Ikisaya model as planned on paper. The main differences are shown in the following table (Table 10). The Sunderban model is described the way it was observed during the fieldwork.

The various mini-grid systems in the Sunderban were not uniform, but most of the features mentioned below were common for all those studied. The Ikisaya model is described the way it looked at the time of actual start of operation.

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Table 10. The main differences between the Sunderban model and the Ikisaya model.

The Sunderban solar mini-grids The socio-technical design for Ikisaya

Gridlines to the houses No gridlines

Power supplied for fixed hours in the evening for lighting, phone charging, TV and fans.

Photocopying and typing services provided by electricity customers

Power used when needed, but for limited time, for lighting, phone charging, photocopying, typing, and TV services. Retail shop at the power plant Monthly payment for electricity, fixed amount at

two levels Payment upfront for each service, no fixed

payment Large system (relatively), 25-110 kW for 300-500

households and other customers Small system, 2.1 kW for lighting for 240 households and various services

1-2 operators in a plant, mainly doing technical tasks, but also negotiating with local people (committees, customers, etc.) about problems

3-4 staff members, doing a variety of tasks. The customers and the staff meet face to face every time the customers use the services

Staff has little freedom to influence the business, but their commitment is important for the technical performance of the electricity provision

Staff has large freedom to influence the business, and large responsibility for the viability of the system

Only men as staff Women and men as staff

Owned by the government Owned by a CBO, while the implementer owns the technical equipment

There were also similarities between the two models, not least in the challenges met after implementation, as will be seen in the next chapter. Similarities in the system designs, apart from using solar PV at the village level, were the emphasis on electric light, the grant funding, the emphasis on local management and the implementers willingness to work with the local actors. However, there were differences in the details of these aspects.

The chapter shows that even before the team had come as far as trying out anything in practice, the activity of transfering knowledge and experience from India to Kenya had been a comprehensive learning process. Much emphasis had deliberately been put on this

“socio-technical design” phase, both through the interaction with the village community and by the use of social science studies as part of the design process.

The chapter has also shown that early phases of socio-technical experimentation involve predictions of the future actions and practices of social actors. Project implementers and others who are involved in the design process make assumptions like “if we do this, other people will do that”. Even if the potential users have participated in the planning, only the actual functioning of the system can show what the users will do, not only in the beginning of the operation, but also over time. Chapter 8 presents the analysis of how the Ikisaya model worked in practice for the community, and how the involved actors continued to change it.

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Chapter 8: The Kenyan case (III): Confrontation between