Cost of electricity set to come down tremendously

Kenya’s high cost of energy has contributed greatly in making the country unconducive for manufacturing.  This has taken up the cost of living. Kenyans currently pay high electricity bills as the country generates a sizable  percentage of energy through hydro power which is much more expensive in comparison to the geothermal option.

It is estimated that less than 40 % of households in Kenya living close to power transformers are connected to power. This leaves the ramaning 60% in the dark. This huge disparity has been blamed on the high cost of connection which currently stands at Sh. 35,000

But the government has promised to invest close to Sh 2 billion in the next two years to extend the national grid by another 47,000 kilometers of power lines to bring more households nearer to power transformer

Apart from lowering this cost of connecting to power, the government has also promised to shorten the time it takes for households to get connected. Davis Chirchir, the Energy CS, has said that the government has taken an initiative to reduce the time it takes to connect from 163 days to an average of 30 days. New residential connections will take less than 40 days after application

Chirchir’s announcement comes ahead of the launch of a 140 Megawatt geothermal power plant in Olkaria Naivasha that is expected to cut power bills by at least 30%. The launch of the Olkaria 4 power plant is part of a plan to inject 280 Megawatts of steam generated power into the national grid by the end of 2014.

In 40 months, the government will have plugged in an additional 5,000 Megawatts of power which will further bring down the cost of power which has over time seen a number of companies exit the country to venture in other markets that offer cheaper power tariffs.

Overall, Kenya wants to have electricity bills in the next three years to about 8 shillings per kilowatt hour (kWh)