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Final Up to date on: seventeenth April 2025, 12:05 am
New IEA report highlights Kenya’s sturdy progress in increasing entry to electrical energy and clear cooking pushed by sturdy insurance policies and focused infrastructure investments
Kenya is on monitor to realize 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 keeping with the IEA’s new Vitality Coverage Evaluation 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 attaining full entry, the report notes. The Final Mile Connectivity Challenge (LMCP), launched in 2015, has performed a pivotal position in bringing electrical energy to 9 million individuals in rural areas and lowering the variety of individuals with out entry by almost half in slightly below a decade. Ongoing initiatives purpose 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 residence system gross sales in East Africa in 2023. These off-grid options, notably in distant and underserved communities, have grow to be a key a part of Kenya’s electrification technique. At present, one in 5 Kenyan households makes use of solar-powered mini-grids or standalone techniques.
“Kenya is displaying how the strategic deployment of fresh power applied sciences and electrification in end-use sectors can considerably enhance the lives of tens of millions of probably the most susceptible individuals on the planet,” mentioned IEA Deputy Government Director Mary Burce Warlick, who’s launching the report in Nairobi at present 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 suggestions all through the method.
The Draft Nationwide Vitality Coverage (NEP) 2025-2034 was offered by Minister Wandayi to key stakeholders earlier within the day, and confirmed that the suggestions from the IEA Vitality Coverage Evaluation had been thought of within the improvement of the up to date NEP.
“The collaboration with the IEA got here at a very essential second for Kenya, as we’ve been enterprise a complete assessment of our personal Nationwide Vitality Coverage. The IEA’s report affords well timed insights which have helped inform our personal coverage choices”, mentioned Minister Wandayi on the launch of the IEA’s Vitality Coverage Evaluation.
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 technology. Kenya can also be residence to the Lake Turkana Wind Challenge, the biggest wind farm on the African continent, and has a few of the lowest value geothermal initiatives on the planet. Geothermal accounts for nearly one-third of the nation’s whole electrical energy technology capability.
Kenya has considerably improved entry to scrub cooking options over the previous decade, with an entry price of 10% in 2013 to over 30% in 2023. Regardless of this progress, tens of millions of households throughout Kenya — primarily in rural areas — nonetheless depend on polluting fuels akin to firewood, charcoal and kerosene. The newly launched Kenya Nationwide Cooking Transition Technique (KNCTS) outlines a transparent roadmap to realize common entry to scrub cooking by 2028. The IEA report highlights the significance of integrating clear cooking into broader power planning and making certain secure provide chains for fuels and applied sciences as a method of overcoming probably the most cussed limitations to uptake, which embrace gasoline value volatility and the excessive value of improved cookstoves relative to family budgets.
The report additionally underscores Kenya’s efforts to modernise and increase its electrical energy grid. New rules launched in 2024 open transmission and distribution networks to personal funding, aiming to extend competitors, cut back prices and enhance effectivity. Kenya’s energy networks, nonetheless, nonetheless face excessive losses — estimated at 23% in 2023 — as a consequence of technical points, theft, and billing issues. Good grid options and higher administration techniques are into consideration to handle these losses, the report notes.
Whereas challenges stay in areas akin to affordability and regulatory coordination, the IEA concludes that Kenya is nicely positioned to satisfy its long-term power and improvement targets. With sturdy coverage frameworks, a talented workforce and a excessive renewable power potential, Kenya is paving the way in which towards a extra inclusive, sustainable and safe power future.
The IEA often conducts evaluations of power and local weather associated insurance policies and supplies suggestions — a course of that helps power coverage improvement and encourages the alternate of worldwide greatest practices and experiences.
Information launch from IEA.
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