Summary
This lessons learnt report shows why solarisation matters for humanitarian preparedness. In a remote, off-grid setting where floods, insecurity and poor roads can disrupt fuel deliveries, WFP’s solarisation of sites across all four camps helps keep distributions, lighting, beneficiary processing, staff work and site security running. The system supports services for 400,000+ people, saves around 90 tonnes of CO₂ each year, and has reduced generator fuel costs by over 90% across the camps. For humanitarian logisticians, the message is clear: treat solarisation as emergency preparedness, not an add-on — it improves operational continuity, cuts costs, reduces fuel dependency and helps teams stay ready when access breaks down.
Content
Lessons Learnt for Preparedness & Environmental Sustainability
Why this Lessons Learnt Report?
Solarisation belongs at the heart of humanitarian emergency preparedness.
In Dadaab, WFP operates in a remote, off-grid setting where insecurity, poor roads, and extreme weather events and disruptions jeopardise fuel supply. When increased erratic rains made the main road impassable for two months in 2025, fuel stocks kept operations running, but the experience showed a clear risk: humanitarian operations can be disrupted when relying only on fuel deliveries, particularly in remote locations.
Solar power now ensures that facilities stay operational even if roads are destroyed and fuel supply chains are disrupted. It gives the four camps a more reliable energy source for distributions, lighting, staff work, and site security. It reduces fuel costs and costs for generator maintenance,
freeing scarce resources for people who need assistance. It also has the benefit of reducing the environmental impact of humanitarian operations.
The Dadaab experience shows that solarisation is not only a sustainability measure. It is a practical investment in operational continuity, safety and resilience – and therefore preparedness, with services supporting over 400,000 beneficiaries.
These lessons learnt are documented and being shared with and for the humanitarian logistics community. They are based on the WFP experience in Dadaab and intended to inform similar initiatives and suggest future action for the logistics community.
Overview
Dadaab, Kenya is home to one of the largest refugee complexes in the world and faces crises including floods and other hazards. It is not connected to the national grid which means WFP previously depended on generator fuel transported over long distances and along difficult routes. This made power supply costly, risky and vulnerable to disruption. To protect operational continuity and increase efficiency, WFP Kenya received funds from the Energy Efficiency Programme and solarised sites across all four camps.
What changed: Before solarisation, WFP’s Extended Delivery Points (EDPs) and Food Delivery Points (FDPs) in Dadaab depended entirely on generator fuel for power throughout WFP’s operation of the camps. WFP installed solar power across all four camps, supporting lighting, computers, and food distribution activities. They also installed shaded solar carports.
Why it matters: The solarisation systems reduce reliance on generator fuel and its environmental impact, helping operations to continue even when roads become unsafe or impassable.
What enabled it: Strong logistics planning, a clear operational need for improving service continuity, effective collaboration cross unit collaboration between all functional teams and senior management support, use of available sunlight and a shared understanding that energy resilience supports both preparedness and sustainability.
Regional relevance: The case offers a practical model for remote humanitarian sites in East Africa and similar off-grid operations exposed to insecurity, high fuel costs and access constraints due to infrastructure disruption. It provides an example of integration of solarisation into logistics planning from the start ensuring that designs and systems are in line with projected demands and humanitarian needs.
Outcomes and impact
The solarisation project has improved day-to-day operations and strengthened readiness for future shocks. In a remote, off-grid settings such as Dadaab, where power traditionally depended on generators, solar energy directly supports last mile service delivery by keeping essential functions running closer to the people WFP serves. The project demonstrates how energy security can reinforce operational continuity, safer compounds, more efficient resource use and more cost-effective humanitarian operations.
Logistics and Telecommunication Cluster’s Environmental Sustainability Team, WREC Coalition
Global.WREC@wfp.org
- Business continuity: Solar power keeps critical camp functions running with less dependence on fuel deliveries. This matters when insecurity or flooding blocks roads and when humanitarian teams need to maintain last mile services without interruption. Current supply chain challenges show the practical value of solarisation for business continuity: when fuel deliveries are delayed or disrupted, solar power helps keep essential services running.
- Last mile service delivery: Effective deep-field operations require the right technology and approach to reach the last mile. In Dadaab, solar power supports the practical systems that enable beneficiary processing, distributions, compound lighting and daily staff work across all four camps.
- Safety and security: Solar-powered lighting improves compound security for staff, commodities and the people served.
- Environmental sustainability: the installed systems have a combined capacity of 92 kilowatt peak and is expected to generate about 100 megawatt hours per year, saving around 90 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
- Fuel reduction: In 2024, prior to solarising, the WFP spent US$ 35,000 on generator fuel across the four camps. Thanks to solarising, 2025 generator fuel expenses are reduced to US$ 2,800 – over 90% savings on fuel expenses across the four camps.
- Cost savings: lower fuel use means WFP can direct more resources towards assistance, including food support in a context where ration cuts affect refugee households.
- Scale of service supported: The solar-powered compound contributes to safer and more reliable operations for staff, commodities and services supporting 400,000 or more beneficiaries.
- Better working conditions: Quieter operations due to reduced generator noise and less pollution for staff and beneficiaries during distributions.
- Preparedness spotlight: During previous flooding, the road to Dadaab became impassable for two months. WFP had planned fuel stocks and could keep distributions running, but several partners needed fuel support for hospitals, ambulances, fire trucks and compounds. Solar power reduces such shared vulnerability and helps humanitarian actors stay operational when access breaks down. It leads to fewer fuel deliveries, lower transport and storage costs and reduces exposure to fuel supply disruptions thus enhancing planning and predictability of supply chain operations.
Challenges
- High upfront investment: Expanding solar power to the main office and shared compound will need additional funding.
- Shared infrastructure: A wider compound-level solution requires UN and NGO agencies to coordinate priorities, financing and implementation.
- Remaining fuel dependence: Vehicles and some generators still use fuel, so solarisation should sit within a broader energy and fleet transition plan.
Lessons Learnt for Emergency Preparedness
Generator fuel prices have soared, and fuel transport is subject to disruption. These trends can be observed across the East African region. Planning solarisation as a emergency preparedness asset, not an add-on means sites can stay operational when fuel supply chains fail. Indeed, energy planning should sit alongside food pipeline, fleet, security, and contingency planning because power enables distributions, beneficiary processing, lighting and communications, especially in deep field locations without regular power supply. Dadaab offers lessons for the wider region on how solarisation can strengthen preparedness, improve operational continuity and reduce reliance on vulnerable fuel supply chains.
- Design for last mile continuity. As an example for the region, Dadaab shows that reaching people in deep-field operations requires
reliable, appropriate technology. Solarisation strengthens the ability to maintain services at the last mile when roads become unsafe, fuel
deliveries are delayed, or floods, infrastructure damage, conflict, whatever restrict access. - Use logistics evidence to build the case for long term impact. Fuel shortages, road closures, and ration cuts make the operational
and financial value of solarisation across the region concrete. A 90% reduction in fuel consumption means crucial savings can be
reinvested to better serve beneficiaries. - Recognise that security is fuelled by power. Solar-powered lighting is available even when the generators run out of fuel, meaning it
provides staff, beneficiaries, and humanitarian supplies with the necessary security. This makes solarisation relevant not only to
sustainability, but also to all humanitarian functions – operations, protection, security and programme. - Prioritise systems that serve multiple critical functions. The Dadaab system supports computers, beneficiary processing, lighting,
distributions and compound security. Preparedness investments are stronger when one solution reduces several operational risks at
once and for all. - Coordinate early. Multi-agency compounds can maximise impact if organisations align technical choices, funding asks and
maintenance arrangements from the start. Early coordination also helps identify shared vulnerabilities, such as common dependence on
fuel during floods or access constraints. - Embed sustainability in routine planning. The Tanzania Environmental Sustainability Training and Emergency Preparedness
Simulation Exercise found that sustainability actions can remain reactive if they are not explicitly included in SOPs, emergency
preparedness plans and coordination tools. Dadaab’s solarisation lessons should therefore be integrated into routine logistics planning,
not treated as a stand-alone energy project. - Test solarisation as part of simulation-based learning helps validate logistics systems, identify practical gaps and build confidence.
Similar exercises could test how solar-powered sites continue operations during road closures, fuel shortages or multi-agency surge
responses. - Focus on localisation & maintenance. WFP established a long-term maintenance agreement to keep the solar systems reliable and
support faster repairs. Local staff help maintain the systems and carry out basic maintenance, strengthening local ownership and
building practical skills. As they see the benefits first-hand, they also help share the value of solar power with other communities.
Sustainability makes preparedness stronger
Humanitarian organisations should treat solarisation as a core emergency preparedness measure for remote and off-grid operations. Failing to do so represents a missed opportunity to strengthen operational continuity, reduce costs and improve readiness before the next disruption occurs.
An example for the entire region, the Dadaab experience shows that solar power:
- Reduces fuel dependence, thereby reducing operational costs which can then be used to better serve affected population.
- Strengthens or even enables last mile service delivery.
- Keeps essential camp functions running even when access becomes difficult.
Organisations should use quantified operational evidence, including fuel and cost savings, and service continuity benefits, to make stronger investment cases for solarisation. Such a case needs to be made prior to any operational disruptions due to power shortages – emphasising the need to include solarisation as part of emergency preparedness rather than
as an afterthought.
Going forward, supply chain professionals must think of solarisation as an emergency preparedness activity essential for operational continuity and cost efficacy with the added benefit of enhancing sustainability. Concretely, emergency preparedness could:
- Test energy continuity through regular simulation exercises. Use emergency simulations to check whether sites can keep distributions, registration, lighting, communications and security systems running during road closures, fuel shortages or sudden scale-ups and how solarisation can mitigate any risks identified.
- Include energy risk assessments in contingency and readiness plans. Teams should identify where power disruption could stop essential operations and assess whether solarisation can reduce that risk before an emergency occurs.
- Add solarisation plans and energy audits to preparedness plans and coordination tools. This helps logistics teams treat reliable power as an essential supply chain requirement, compare upfront investment for solarisation with fuel and maintenance costs, and plan budgets before operations face disruption.
- Build energy considerations including solarisation options into SOPs for facilities. Teams should assess solar options early when they choose, upgrade or expand facilities, so that sites have enough reliable power for last mile service delivery from the start and are adequately prepared for emergencies.
- Link energy planning including solarisation with protection and security SOPs. Solarisation can keep lighting, communications and basic site services running when generators fail or fuel deliveries stop, helping teams to protect staff, commodities and affected people.
In conclusion, solarisation is a win-win measure that can support emergency preparedness, reduce operational costs helping humanitarian teams better serve affected populations, while also delivering environmental benefits.
Logistics and Telecommunication Cluster’s Environmental Sustainability Team, WREC Coalition
Global.WREC@wfp.org
