Kenya’s power utility firm, Kenya Power on Tuesday disclosed that that the number of consumers connected to electricity in the country stands at 7.1 million, an increase by thirty percent from last year.
In new data released by the company, an extra 440,000 electricity consumers were connected to the national grid in the period.
The company’s acting CEO Engineer Jared Othieno said that they were committed to increasing their customers by 600,000 every year.
Othieno noted that they were committed to meeting to the government envisaged universal electricity connection by 2020.
“The government has rolled out countrywide measures to make sure that all parts of the country are connected to electricity and currently we have 7.1m connected to the national grid,” he said.
The CEO at the same time noted that electricity demand during the peak stood at 1,882mw and hence the need to increase production.
According to a world bank report released last year, national grid extension approach is slow despite ongoing implementation of World Bank-funded Least Mile Connectivity Project (LMCP) that slashed connection fee from 35,000 shillings ($341) to 15,000 shillings ($146) to be paid in installments by new household customers.
It aims to make connections affordable to low-income customers and speed up electrification rate through installation of additional transformers and extension of low-voltage power lines into remote villages.
According to the “Energy Progress Report” electricity access rate in Kenya is the highest in East Africa.
The report covering the period up to 2016, electricity access rate in Kenya stood at 56 percent, compared to Tanzania at 32.8 percent, Rwanda at 29.37 percent, Uganda at 26.7 percent and Burundi at 7.5 percent.
JK/abj/APA