light a home

High methane emission from disintegrated animal waste in rural villages and organic waste in peri urban regions leading to global warming in the midst of high rate of tree felling in rural areas for cooking fuel.

In rural kenya,an average farmer has 2 cows our equivalent number of pigs/chicken.The resultant waste isn’t bulk enough to feed a biogas plant, inmost cases these waste is left to ferment and compost in field or community piles in high density residential areas.The results; High methane emission leading to global warming,foul smell from ammonia produced as well as possibility of water pollutions where waste is pilled and washed to rivers during rainy season. 

In Kenya 85% of rural dwellers depends on firewood for cooking , these leads to high level of deforestation and a great contributor to desertification.

Light a village, has its beach head operational area in Nakuru city neighbourhood,a semiarid area surrounding international bird area of l. Elementainta, locally the area is protect for bird conservation and women and girls from the locality have being ,raped,beaten and some jailed as they sneak to fetch firewood. It is for these reason that we decided to act and develop a solution from what they have on farm as well as replicate these to thousands of farmers in central and rift valley Kenya.

most small scale farmers in arid and semiarid areas keep very little number of livestock ,since the resultant farm waste and animal waste cant feed a biogas plant, it is left to disintegrate on farm and compost while these farmers suffers from lack of efficient cooking fuel .

we  are a biogas construction company that have advanced in controlled rapid fermentation through use of effectively selected bacteria vials and controlled temperature and ph to ensure our biogas production unit is 50% faster and achieve 30% more yields.

Through light a village, we design and construct community biogas on credit to aggregate of small scale farmers who manage and feed the biogas from their waste, the system come with a smart meter and measuring that predict the amount of biogas to be produced from feed waste and smart regulator to ensure the gas pumped out matches the paid credit(pay as you use). as a company charge 20% of the cost of gas produce which we use to recoup our investment plus 20% profit of investment within an year. at non farming periurban community, we own the plants wholly and buy organic waste separated from houses as feed stock through redeemable points

our beach head market is nyandarua and nakuru county where we are targeting to serve 50% of 80,000 households that have a cattle and still uses wood fuel for cooking and heating .most of them earn below $2 per day and affording gas would be a problem to them. however from point trading through waste supply, we are able make biogas refill affordable to them

we are a blend of  diverse knowledge, experiences and brought together by passion and will to achieve change.

James kamau is a trained mechanical plant operator engineer with 3 years experience in bioreactors operations, he brings wealth of biotechnology, bioengineering and biogas production and regulation process to the team,he is a trained social entrepreneur via ygap social entrepreneur .

he serve as the project c.e.o and founder

Hannah wangari : Operations manager of the venture ,trained accountant and community development officers, works to train women on biogas feeding and usage as well as customer reviews

wambui kuria: 17 year old cofounder and previous leader of girls gang that raided forest for wood,she is only active on holidays to train young girls on how to feed biogas plant and use biogas waste to start kitchen garden.

technical support, network and learn from  global network of social entreprenuers in mit network.

community biogas system: one of the challenges that isnt tackled well in rural villages and peri urban areas  is disintegrated waste . construction of a biogas plant is an expensive affair but seems more expensive to maintain it when a farmer has one or two cattle (equivalent waste ), we build community biogas in which people contribute the little waste they have and get exchange of these for cooking gas when they need it. we offer pay as you use smart meter which means farmers get gas and can use waste credit ( one they supply waste they get redeemable  credit point ) or the exact money in their mobile wallet to use the gas for the day. the means we can replace the unsustainable fuel based on traditional pay and use per day.

we eliminate bulking of waste in peri urban areas as well as carbon emitted when we have disintegrated was in rural farms . 

our beach head market is nyandarua and nakuru county where we are targeting to serve 50% of 80,000 households that have a cattle and still uses wood fuel for cooking and heating .most of them earn below $2 per day and affording gas would be a problem to them. however from point trading through waste supply, we are able make biogas refill affordable to them.

we aim to reach out to 4000 of these farmers if funding is available in the first 1 year.

for every 1 kg of cattle waste left to waste on farm , 4 kgs of methane (equivalent to 16kgs of atmospheric carbon dioxide is emitted to enviroment.

for every 6 kgs of biogas  methane produced , 35kgs of paraffin is saved from usage or  1 tree saved from being cut down.

we use these parameters to measure our impact in nature as well as the amount of money saved on fuel as our solution is 75% cheaper than using traditional heating and cooking methods .

i was born and brought up in Nyandarua, a small scale farming hub with a population of 80,000 farmers.Of these population, 90% depends on firewood for lighting despite the wet waste generated per day being approximately 400tonnes with equivalent of 1.6 million litres of ghg emitted to environment. I Grew up knowing every end month weekend as a tree felling weekend for firewood, the luxury is no more as trees are few and government is more strict.

Volunteering as scout in 2017 at a conservancy in l.Elementaita, i witness the pain that local communities around semi arid conservancy goes through,women and young girls as per society norm would sneak for firewood oblivious of dangers of wild animals and unmerciful security personnel.

its after these pain that i sat with 3  local women  cbos to strategize on the way forward, i learn the first model in 2019 which was a success and am building on these to scale on operations .

It is from these pilots that we have analyzed the cost effectiveness and efficiency of our solution which have turned out to be positive.

Biogas production is an ancient tradition which have being in use for centuries. the chemical and biological process are well known and at lab scale have being enhanced to fasten production or lead to increased biogas production per material.

light a village work to improve on these by developing a temperature, PH controlled ,bacteria enhanced biogas plant that includes biomonitoring and digital regulators to met our unique operation model which is economical, sustainable and circular in nature.

we combine biotechnology innovation in influencing the rate of fermentation of feed material as well as digital based technology in setting out biogas regulator that ensures pay as you fill model  that enable us to recover of investment.

We are diverse team that is working to deliver our solution to diverse community in which we cut across different lines of poverty, geographical areas ,and ethnic groups.

Being in early forming areas , we aim to scale our efforts to be as inclusive as possible on scale 

We work to elimate problem of low access&affordability of clean&quick cooking solution among rural community living in nyandarua&nakuru who mostly depend on wood fuel to cook while at the same time eliminating ghg emission that occurs when animal waste&excess non preserved farm produce are let to rot in open air producing methane. we offer credit pay-as-you-use(smart metered) biogas on individual&community level( where individual cant run biogas plant due to insufficient waste).locals get cheap refills at community biogas plant .to individual(groups) in productive counties, the package include biogas to electricity convertors&biogas powered dries where locals preserve excess produce via drying.

We build biogas in credit, fix it with smart meters where locals refill on pay as you use basis, we have control of these meter until we recover all our spending plus 12% profit

We build biogas in credit, fix it with smart meters where locals refill on pay as you use basis, we have control of these meter until we recover all our spending plus 12% profit

We are in pilots and out of the 3 major project carried so far, we have being able to receive 100% recovery of investment and companies like inua uwezo builders are sub contacting us in waste management and energy solution in their estate .