Kenya Power cuts cost of connecting homes to grid

Politics and policy

 

Kenya Power staff repair power lines in Nyeri. The utility firm has tendered for a novel single phase supply system that is expected to lower the cost of electricity connections. PHOTO | FILE 

By KIARIE NJOROGE

In Summary

• Electricity distributor has adopted a new design that reduces cost of construction material.
• The design will see Kenya Power use fewer cables and poles to connect households to the national grid at an average cost of Sh30,000.
• Experts say that besides lower material costs, the new design cuts other costs such as labour and transport expenses and allows for faster development of the network.

Electricity distributor Kenya Power is adopting use of a new transmission lines design that is expected to cut the cost of connecting new consumers to an average of Sh30,000.

The design, to be applied mainly in rural areas, will see Kenya Power use fewer cables and poles to connect households to the national grid.

Known as the Single Wire Earthing Return (SWER) system, the design allows the power distributor to pull down connection costs from the current average of Sh105,000 for homes seeking supply within a radius of 600-metres from a transformer.

Lower cost of connection is to be realised through use of single, thinner and lighter cables as opposed to the current system that uses two or four cables to connect domestic consumers.

Kenya Power is also planning to cut costs by using smaller poles that will be spaced 100 metres apart instead of the current 50 metres.

“We are going to save on every aspect and this should bring down connection rates within the 600 meter radius to an average of Sh30,000 from the current Sh105,000,” Ben Chumo, the managing director of Kenya Power said.

Use of the new technology comes as the Jubilee government races to meet its target of connecting one million new customers to the national grid in the fiscal year ending June 2015.

READ: Kenya Power targets 1 million new connections this fiscal year

The twin obligations of meeting set government targets and shouldering the burden of higher connection costs had left Kenya Power in a fix – especially after the government withdrew a Sh2.7 billion subsidy it had offered to plug the financing gap between the market cost of Sh105,000 and the Sh35,000 paid by consumers living within 600 metres radius of a transformer.

“We have been overdesigning by using three phase (commercial users) networks to connect new consumers yet 98 per cent of new applicants are single phase users (domestic). It’s like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly,” Dr Chumo said.

SWER is a single phase supply system with a single conducting line that uses the earth as the return conductor. Metal rods are driven two or three meters into the ground to provide the earth connection.

Experts said that besides lower material costs, the SWER design cuts other costs such as labour and transport expenses and allows for faster development of the network.

“We will make savings on conductors, pole size and population as well as transport and labour because of reduced use of materials. These benefits will be transferred to our new customers,” Dr Chumo said.

The new poles are similar to those hitherto used by Telkom Kenya to carry telephone lines. The average price of the bigger poles that Kenya Power uses is Sh12,000 compared to Sh8,000 for the smaller poles. The conductors (cable) will be 25 millimetres squared compared to the current 75mm² to 100mm².

SWER has been extensively used in New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Canada and India in sparsely populated areas.