As a County Coordinator for Africa Bioenergy Program Limited (ABPL), Evance’s day-to-day work involves user training and capacity building, awareness raising, and other activities aimed at promoting the growth of Kenya’s biogas sector and more generally fostering an enabling environment where market actors feel supported in delivering sustainable biogas solutions. Since its inception in 2009, ABPL has implemented tens of thousands of bio-digester units across Kenya, making operations and maintenance a costly and logistically challenging task.
Prior to the introduction of Smart Biogas, Evance mainly relied on user feedback and in-person visits to conduct this task. On the one side, feedback would not always be promptly available, causing delays in Evance’s intervention – possibly leading to further damage to the units. Even when the user would be prompt in informing Evance, their feedback may not be accurate – making it difficult to establish the causes of system failure without in-person visits. After attempting solutions, Evance would still rely on reporting by the user to verify whether his intervention had been successful. These practical challenges – common across the sector – affected not only the relationship between biogas users and ABPL, but also users’ trust in the technology and confidence in local providers to design effective solutions..
“Smart Biogas brings enourmous benefits to organisations like ours by drastically reducing the turn-around time and bringing much more clarity to the troubleshooting process.”
Evance, County Coordinator, ABPL
Evance’s first interaction with Smart Biogas happened in 2019 during a first trial. Initially, Evance assumed that Inclusive Energy’s technology would only help identify non-functional digesters, without any further detail on their performance or insight into troubleshooting. Soon after implementation, however, Evance found himself with a wealth of data and analytical parameters at his disposal – making him greatly facilitated in his day-to-day challenge to remotely manage thousands of units dispersed all across the country.
“I am now able to pre-empt problems by identifying leaking or venting patterns before the user reaches out. When they do, I am able to advise them with greater confidence – for Smart Biogas provides detailed insights as to what is going on.”
Through his involvement in the partnership between Inclusive Energy and ABPL, Evance has not only pioneered interventions to optimise the performance of Kenyan digesters, but has also been at the forefront of an attempt to gain better understanding of the complex phenomenon of venting – whose drivers are multiple and both technical and social in nature. In 2024, Evance joined a party of presenters to share his newfound experience and wealth of knowledge at the African Biodigester Component Annual Knowledge Exchange.
