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Final Up to date on: seventeenth April 2025, 12:38 am
New IEA report highlights Kenya’s robust progress in increasing entry to electrical energy and clear cooking pushed by strong insurance policies and focused infrastructure investments
Kenya is on monitor to attain common electrical energy entry by 2030, as formidable implementation plans and electrification utilizing clear power applied sciences place the nation as an financial and power improvement chief throughout the area, in line with the IEA’s new Energy Policy Review of the nation.
With a sustained deal with electrification, electrical energy entry charges in Kenya rose from 37% in 2013 to 79% in 2023, with city areas already reaching full entry, the report notes. The Final Mile Connectivity Undertaking (LMCP), launched in 2015, has performed a pivotal position in bringing electrical energy to 9 million individuals in rural areas and decreasing the variety of individuals with out entry by almost half in slightly below a decade. Ongoing initiatives intention to attach a further 280,000 households throughout the nation by the top of 2025.
The report highlights Kenya’s management in off-grid photo voltaic adoption, with the nation accounting for almost three-quarters of all photo voltaic dwelling system gross sales in East Africa in 2023. These off-grid options, significantly in distant and underserved communities, have change into a key a part of Kenya’s electrification technique. At the moment, one in 5 Kenyan households makes use of solar-powered mini-grids or standalone programs.
“Kenya is showing how the strategic deployment of clean energy technologies and electrification in end-use sectors can significantly improve the lives of millions of the most vulnerable people in the world,” stated IEA Deputy Government Director Mary Burce Warlickwho’s launching the report in Nairobi at this time alongside Kenya’s Minister of Vitality and Petroleum J. Opiyo Wandayi.
The report coincides with the Kenyan authorities’s assessment of its personal Nationwide Vitality Coverage. The IEA was a part of the stakeholder consultations from the start of the nationwide assessment, offering inputs and proposals all through the method.
The Draft Nationwide Vitality Coverage (NEP) 2025-2034 was introduced by Minister Wandayi to key stakeholders earlier within the day, and confirmed that the suggestions from the IEA Vitality Coverage Overview had been thought of within the improvement of the up to date NEP.
“The collaboration with the IEA came at a particularly important moment for Kenya, as we have been undertaking a comprehensive review of our own National Energy Policy. The IEA’s report offers timely insights that have helped inform our own policy decisions”, stated Minister Wandayi on the launch of the IEA’s Vitality Coverage Overview.
Low-emissions applied sciences are the cornerstone of Kenya’s electrical energy combine, with geothermal, hydro, wind and photo voltaic sources accounting for almost 90% of energy era. Kenya can be dwelling to the Lake Turkana Wind Undertaking, the most important wind farm on the African continent, and has a few of the lowest value geothermal tasks on the earth. Geothermal accounts for nearly one-third of the nation’s whole electrical energy era capability.
Kenya has considerably improved entry to wash cooking options over the previous decade, with an entry charge of 10% in 2013 to over 30% in 2023. Regardless of this progress, thousands and thousands of households throughout Kenya — primarily in rural areas — nonetheless depend on polluting fuels reminiscent of firewood, charcoal and kerosene. The newly launched Kenya Nationwide Cooking Transition Technique (KNCTS) outlines a transparent roadmap to attain common entry to wash cooking by 2028. The IEA report highlights the significance of integrating clear cooking into broader power planning and guaranteeing steady provide chains for fuels and applied sciences as a way of overcoming probably the most cussed boundaries to uptake, which embody gas value volatility and the excessive value of improved cookstoves relative to family budgets.
The report additionally underscores Kenya’s efforts to modernise and develop its electrical energy grid. New rules launched in 2024 open transmission and distribution networks to personal funding, aiming to extend competitors, scale back prices and enhance effectivity. Kenya’s energy networks, nevertheless, nonetheless face excessive losses — estimated at 23% in 2023 — attributable to technical points, theft, and billing issues. Good grid options and higher administration programs are into account to handle these losses, the report notes.
Whereas challenges stay in areas reminiscent of affordability and regulatory coordination, the IEA concludes that Kenya is effectively positioned to fulfill its long-term power and improvement targets. With robust coverage frameworks, a talented workforce and a excessive renewable power potential, Kenya is paving the best way towards a extra inclusive, sustainable and safe power future.
The IEA repeatedly conducts evaluations of power and local weather associated insurance policies and gives suggestions — a course of that helps power coverage improvement and encourages the trade of worldwide greatest practices and experiences.
Information launch from IEA.
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