ÉnergieRich

In Africa 600 million people live without electricity. And those with access rely on imported energy products that are expensive, difficult to repair, and not tailored for local environments. The lack of local energy solutions takes a toll on the economy and results in missed opportunities for knowledge and technology transfers, innovative design, quality control and employment creation.

ÉnergieRich is an engineering firm developing community-built clean energy solutions to reduce inequalities in Africa and the Diaspora. Working with top young engineers in West Africa and U.S., we co-develop local solutions to mitigate effects of climate change while growing local economies.

Our flagship product - solar powered poultry egg incubator. The incubator leverages the high solar irradiance in West Africa to reduce the cycle time of poultry production and increase production capacity. Our work offers solutions for food sustainability, energy access, technology acquisition and employment while advancing opportunities for Black engineers.

We are supporting small scale poultry producers with access to inputs, capital and knowledge to improve yields in Ghana.  Ghana's poultry sector is growing at 8.7% per year. Ghana's egg production is increasing rapidly, from 5 million in 2000 to 10.9 million in 2011. Yet poultry producers rely on unstable electric grid for production.  Poultry egg incubators can increase productivity by 80% over traditional farming practices.  But Farmers have great difficulty accessing capital to purchase an expensive foreign built incubators.

Unreliable  electricity grids mean that when the power goes out entire batches of eggs can be lost. People then use diesel-powered generators that have negative environmental impacts, contributing to air pollution, climate change, and community noise.  Also if the incubators break farmers do not have the correct tools, components or know-how to fix them.

COVID-19 has exposed West Africa’s reliance on a poultry supply chain from Europe and the United States. In 2018, 7,131,000 day old chicks and 511,960 day-old brooders were imported from Europe to Ghana. Supply chain disruptions lead to severe food insecurity.

The majority of engineering students in Ghana seek to leave the country upon graduation for employment in the West leading to a crippling brain drain.

Affordable solar poultry incubation service for small to medium scale poultry farmers. Farmers use a mobile phone interface to request their eggs to be picked up, incubated, and then returned as day-old chicks. We locally source incubators and power them with our solar panel system to provide reliable low-carbon energy. By building locally, and employing drivers to transport the eggs, we retain value in the community while increasing domestic poultry production.

Our target population are small to medium size poultry farmers in Ghana who account for 80% of the poultry sector.  We have conducted market research to understand their specific needs.  The co-founder of ÉnergieRich is an experienced poultry farmer from Burkina Faso who has deep knowledge of the industry in West Africa and conducts training on modernizing the poultry sector.  The solution will increase productivity, reduce carbon emission and connect them with a network of local and Diaspora engineers who will continually improve upon the product and co-generate ideas for future innovation.

Additionally
1. Rural development would be positively impacted due to
the incubator. 58% of Ghana's poultry sector operates in rural
communities.
2. Economic transformation would occur in Ghana's poultry sector.
3.The World Bank, OECD and many other sources identify SMEs as "the
engine of economic growth" - especially in developing countries. If
Ghana is to have green, sustainable and inclusive growth, it starts with
its SMEs. EnergieRich Spring's solution promotes this notion.
4. Increase in domestic poultry production, consequently, increasing food security in Ghana.

Clean local poultry production supports sustainability by utilizing a low-carbon source for energy-intensive incubation process. This reduces the incubation impact relative to grid-run incubators which use carbon emitting fossil fuel; and increases local poultry production. As locally produced poultry increases, emissions from importation of poultry from Europe decline.

We work with small and medium sized poultry farmers as their limited access to capital keeps them from scaling their operations. Our solution makes  reliable green incubation accessible and triples poultry yields.  This is particularly encouraging for burgeoning non-chicken poultry markets, where farmers have yet to commercially scale indigenous guinea fowl production.

Farmers will have access to clean energy incubators that dramatically improve yield while reducing carbon emissions. They are also integrated into a network of dynamic young Black engineers from Ghana and the U.S. to co-create and exchange knowledge working towards establishing critical domestic poultry production infrastructure based upon clean energy solutions.

The core technology is the well-sized solar energy components (panels and batteries) that provide sufficient energy reliably without excess cost for extraneous size.

Solar power systems are already widely used in the region in residential and commercial applications to combat unreliable electricity grids. We conducted in situ subscale energy consumption tests in Summer 2019 and subscale solar power tests in early Spring 2020 to refine and validate our models for accurate performance estimation and sizing.

In Subsaharan Africa 600 million people live without electricity.  Yet throughout Africa, people rely primarily on imported energy products and systems that are expensive, difficult to repair, and are not tailored for the local environment. The lack of local solutions takes a toll on the economy and results in missed opportunities for knowledge and technology transfers, innovative design, quality control and employment creation.

ÉnergieRich is an engineering firm specializing in community-led, clean energy solutions for robust green economies. ÉnergieRich was founded as an international collaboration to co-develop innovative clean energy solutions that advance justice for Africa and the Diaspora.  We are building Diaspora collaboration with engineers and local communities to design green tech, built locally, to mitigate the impacts of climate change.  We partner with communities to design and locally manufacture clean energy solutions to solve these problems simultaneously.

 Through our partnerships with farmers, clean energy entrepreneurs, engineering students and professionals, we co-design and construct clean energy appropriate technology in West Africa to reduce carbon emissions.  Regular communication is conducted through onsite visits, phone and skype conversations and research. Our lead U.S. based engineers designed a program for Ashesi University engineering students to conduct engineering and market research, system designs and develop a customer relations framework. Through our programs we establish a strong Diaspora network of talented engineers to collaborate on designing solutions for some of the most pressing challenges faced by Black people throughout the world, accelerated by the disproportionate impacts of climate change. 

The success of our work is also dependent upon exchanging knowledge between our engineers and stakeholders as a process of democratizing engineering education, and developing a new generation of engineers and innovators who solve critical problems using clean energy solutions, built locally.  We develop instructional videos demonstrating step-by-step assembly process, as well as written reports describing the technology and methodology.  In two years we will begin to hold annual conferences with our community of engineers and stakeholders to exchange knowledge and plan the development of new clean energy appropriate technology. 

Our solution is currently serving 18 students by giving them the opportunity to work on a worthwhile product and retain them in engineering careers.

In one year is will serve 35  students/engineering professionals in Ghana and Diaspora, 50 poultry farmers  and 10 delivery people  

We will Pilot this year to prove business model works and purchase space to build our incubation center 

Goal to expand the incubator service to all regions in Ghana

In Year 5 we will expand throughout West Africa

Based on data we collected we will decrease energy consumption to hatch an egg - reduce consumption by a factor of 2 by integrating the solar and incubation components and using a more efficient heating mechanism

Our goals within the next year include using our subscale locally built incubator to validate the business model. Upon validation, we wish to scale up operations, increase our incubation capacity, and begin developing our first full sized incubation center. To meet these goals, we will grow our team from 5 professional and student volunteers to 10 part and full-time employees, the majority of whom will be based in Accra.

Within five years we will expand to all regions in Ghana and begin operations in neighboring countries Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Cote D'ivoire. We finalize and install version two of the solar incubators, which leverage better integration of the solar components with the incubator to reduce energy consumption by a factor of two and bring down the cost of incubation.

Our major barriers to accomplishing our goals are a lack of funding, overall cost of our initial prototype and the global pandemic, COVID-19 which may hinder travel plans. 

Market barriers - there is a greater preference by consumers for European poultry. The demand for local poultry needs to increase, in particular a demand for guinea fowl and quail.  Without an increase in demand, small and medium scale farmers will not be able to scale using hatching services and instead continue to opt for foreign imported poultry. 

Infrastructural barriers - local manufacturing faces challenges because it can be difficult to procure parts since there is no robust engineering infrastructure currently in place in Ghana. Raw materials will need to be imported from abroad. Additionally, poor road quality creates transportation challenges for pick-up and delivery.

Cultural barriers - many people in Ghana survive outside capital markets, and therefore have different work expectations that can be unreliable based on our strict timelines.

Although COVID-19 limits how much we can travel, we already have strong connections across the Atlantic to facilitate coordination online and development on the ground in Accra.

By securing grant money, we will be able to pay employees to accelerate our growth and start operations for the incubation service. Grant money will also support local manufacturing, material acquisition, and business and research development.

We will seek to secure subsidies, carbon credit and donated equipment to reduce the cost of our prototype.

Infrastructural barriers - having direct relationships with producers of raw materials in China and international transportation operators will allow us to reliably procure materials for local manufacturing. Additionally, motorcycle transportation is less reliant on road quality than cars. If need be, our team has the expertise to consider drone transportation as well.

Cultural barriers - we will have a rigorous selection process when hiring to ensure we’re working with the most reliable employees available.

We currently have (2) lead engineers who travel between the U.S. and Ghana

(5) interns in Ghana

(1) U.S. based Program Manager and Fundraiser

(4) Poultry and clean energy experts based in Burkina Faso

(< 20) engineering consultants in the U.S. and West Africa

(1) Documentary Filmmaker following our story

All positions are part-time and volunteer

Our African Diasporic team has diverse expertise. We are uniquely positioned to develop appropriate sustainable energy solutions. We bring together resources and engineering power of Stanford and MIT with local innovators in West Africa collaborating with poultry farmers on a robust solution. 

Stewart –  MIT aeronautics and astronautics PhD student with expertise in renewable energy system modeling. Stewart spent the past year in Accra teaching at Ashesi University. He worked with student interns, learned about the problem, and formed partnerships

 Dena Montague - Researcher at the Global Environmental Justice Project at UCSB with expertise at the intersection of natural resource management, democracy, economic development in Africa. 

Boureima Kabre - born and raised in Burkina Faso is an expert in solar power systems, poultry farming and creating new markets with extensive local community support and knowledge. 

Nosakhare Edoimioya - University of Michigan mechanical engineering PhD student with expertise in advanced control systems development.

Miquilina Anagbah -  electrical engineering alumna from Ashesi University with expertise in power systems. 

Sean Anum -  Ashesi University business innovator with deep ties to domestic poultry production in Ghana.

Christina Martin-Ebosele - Mechanical engineer with expertise in manufacturing and design.  Masters student at Stanford University in Sustainability Science and Mechanical Engineering 

Cadence Payne -  Aeronautics and astronautics PhD student at MIT with experience leading highly dispersed teams through the Systems Engineering process to launch satellites into space.

Paul Watkins - Stanford trained entrepreneur and mechanical engineer with experience in effective philanthropy, market research and product development.

We currently partner with Ashesi University and Burkina Energie et Technologie Appropriees (BETA)

Ashesi University is one of Africa’s most respected and innovative undergraduate universities.The university aims to propel an African renaissance by educating a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders. Upon graduation, Ashesi alumni are emboldened to tackle persistent problems in their communities, create jobs, and lead with purpose.

We collaborate with students through the Ashesi D:Lab, an entrepreneurial initiative modeled after MIT’s D-Lab that applies design-thinking approaches to business innovation. Our student partners major in school’s management information systems, business and engineering programs. 

BETA is a social enterprise located in Burkina Faso that distributes quality solar products at an affordable price. The company’s founder, Boureima Kabre has 17 years of experience in rural development and solar energy access. BETA distributes these solar products through a network of distributors throughout the Burkina Faso, Benin and Mali. The distributors receive training in solar energy and sales. BETA has mobilized nearly 250 distributors and has sold nearly 20,000 solar lamps and kits in Burkina Faso since November since its creation in 2005. Our flagship product, solar poultry incubator was initially proposed by BETA founder Boureima Kabre. 

 A 200 capacity prototype solar incubator was designed and delivered to BETA headquarters by a team of Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students at Stanford University.  250 youth passionate about learning best practices in poultry farming will learn to build and use the incubator. BETA will build their capacity and to support entrepreneurship training.

We partner with local incubator manufacturers and engineering professionals to co-design incubators and power them with solar equipment. We then equip small and medium scale poultry farmers with incubation services so they can expand production with low capital overhead.

Local motorcycle drivers pick up eggs from the farmers and deliver hatched chicks. We use an SMS and WhatsApp based messaging platform to make pickup and delivery as easy as possible. 

The farmers gain access to reliable easy-to-use hatching services while we collect valuable data to improve the product and evaluate efficacy. We also leverage real time data from solar panels and incubators to optimize incubation and energy management. The solution provides our staff opportunities for quality employment that benefits their own communities and allows them to innovate using clean energy.

Revenue is generated both by subscription services for access to the incubators and the sales of incubators to large scale hatcheries. We keep our costs affordable by subsidizing through carbon offsets offered to high emitting companies around the world.

Value proposition for Farmers - Reliable access to hatching services that are tech integrated to make it easy and accessible to hatch eggs with solar energy while collecting valuable data to improve product and evaluate efficacy. We leverage real time data from the solar panels and incubators to optimize incubation.  Reduce reliance on poultry imports and increase domestic production

For engineers -  quality employment that benefits their own communities and opportunity to innovate using clean energy

We have been working on our solution for five years, however we have consistently lacked the financial and business development support we need to implement the idea. Our lack of funds has meant people work on the solution on a volunteer basis, which hinders sustaining our team since many of us face serious financial constraints. Without business development support, we have been able to work towards our technical solution, but have had less effort to go towards how the solution can be sustained.

We have identified how we will implement our solution and have developed the technical knowledge and partnerships needed for success. We just need a final push to bring this idea into reality. Being with Solve can help us raise funds that will allow us to pay our team and accelerate our development. Additionally, Solve mentorship can help us build a robust business model so that we can sustainably operate and while maintaining the integrity of the communities and people we serve.

Solve mentorship can help us build a robust business model so that we can sustainably operate while maintaining the integrity of the communities and people we serve. We do not currently have expertise in business. 

Solve mentorship can help us secure partnerships that will make our local manufacturing and equipment procural processes reliable and efficient.

We would like to partner with Ghana’s recent initiative, One District, One Factory that “is aimed at creating jobs for Ghanaians through the setting up of factories and industries which will in turn move the country towards greater industrialization”. We believe our incubator manufacturing and operation will create jobs and support this long term goal.

We would like to partner with the Ghana Poultry Project, a USDA funded project aimed to boost domestic poultry production in Ghana through capacity building and promoting strategic investments. 

We would like to partner with Ghana’s National Bureau of Small Scale Industries which is aiming to support young entrepreneurs in agribusiness through its revamped service year initiative. 

We would like to work with Professor Shari Loessberg from the MIT Sloan School who has experience with technical entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

We would like to work with Dr. Afreen Siddiqui, a research scientist in the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT with expertise in large-scale systems engineering focused on water, energy, agriculture, and space systems.

Additionally we seek partnerships with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ghana and UNDP Ghana.