- The Sh26.8 billion project set to start in November is funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the European Union (EU), and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
- The last mile connectivity project (LMCP) is a flagship project initiated in 2015 by the Jubilee administration.
Kenyans without electricity now have every reason to smile after Kenya Power announced the commencement of the fourth phase of the last-mile connectivity project.
In a statement, the company said the project targets 280, 473 households in 32 selected counties.
"This phase of the LMCP project will entail the installation of 940 new transformers, maximisation of 3,735 existing transformers, and construction of associated power lines in the identified counties," it states.
The Sh26.8 billion project set to start in November is funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the European Union (EU), and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The last mile connectivity project (LMCP) is a flagship project initiated in 2015 by the Jubilee administration.
The main objective was to provide affordable connection in rural and peri-urban areas and accelerating universal electricity access to drive social economic growth in line with the country’s 2030 development agenda.
The programme is also aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No. 7 which aims at providing access to clean and affordable energy for all.
Over one million Kenyan households have so far been connected to electricity under the first three phases funded by the government, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank.
This has contributed to the rapid expansion of the country’s network giving electricity access to over 75 percent of the population, up from a low of 29 percent in 2012, ranking Kenya among the world’s top countries in electricity connection growth rate.
"LMCP has had a positive impact on Kenyans as revealed by a recent project Impact Evaluation done by AfDB showing there has been an 83 percent increase in the use of electricity for lighting," the statement from the company further reads.
Additionally, access to electricity, according to the report, has increased the probability of children studying at night by 45 percent while examination grades for secondary school children have increased by 34 percent.
Similarly, the use of electricity for agricultural activities such as irrigation went up by 17 percent.
Data from Kenya Power indicates that there have been positive gains from the project on the Company’s bottom line with sales accrued over four years totalling over Sh1.1 billion from 53.08GHrs of electricity sold to customers connected under the programme over the period.
The power utility aims to further stimulate energy demand among SME and domestic customer segments through demand-side initiatives to promote the productive use of electricity and electric cooking to support the country’s energy transition agenda of transitioning to 100 percent clean energy by 2030.