Mr. Innocent Okot – PI

Dr. Miria Frances Agunyo – Co-PI

In Uganda, traditional biomass fuels such as charcoal, firewood, and briquettes are commonly used for cooking and water heating. These fuels are often burned in inefficient cookstoves, leading to significant resource wastage, increased gaseous emissions, and depletion of forest cover. Uganda Christian University (UCU) – Mukono, like many other institutions is heavily dependent on firewood for cooking. Estimates show that about 90% of cooking energy needs at the University kitchen and dinning hall is covered by firewood utilisation. The major challenge for the UCU dining hall is the cost of procurement which is estimated at about 72m UGX per year with 32 tons of firewood used averagely per semester by 2022 but also the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during cooking thereby contributing to climate change. Access to hot water is critical for a variety of cooking, sanitation, and hygiene, need within kitchens and UCU is no exception. However, typical water heating systems frequently use biomass, fossil fuels or grid power, which may contribute to negative environmental impacts as well as incurring of high costs for energy. To solve these issues, a solar water heating system was installed to reduce the traditional energy needs for heating water needed in the kitchen. The 800litre system while very helpful resulting in reducing firewood use by up to 16.7%, challenges are experienced especially during the rainy season. As such, counter the challenges in heating water experienced during such seasons, development of an improved system for the UCU kitchen that explores direct solar PV water heating. This project is exploring the use of solar PV for direct water heating, which eliminates expensive components such as batteries and charge controllers while providing year-round hot water. It aids the transition to clean cooking at UCU by decreasing dependency on biomass, lowering carbon emissions, and lowering energy costs. The projects is in the final stages of installation and testing of the system will be carried out to further assess the comparative performance of both the solar thermal and the direct solar PV system.