By KIARIE NJOROGE
In Summary
- The connection rates are also expected to be considerably lower than the current market rates which sometimes run into hundreds of thousands of shillings.
Two projects with the promise of significantly
pulling down electricity connection costs and lighting up huge swathes
of rural Kenya are in the pipeline for 2015.
Kenya Power
is looking to connect hundreds of thousands of homes and commercial
customers to the grid through the Single Wire Earthing Return (SWER)
system and the Last Mile Connectivity Project (LMCP). Although both
projects are still at the tendering stage, it’s expected they will be
awarded early next year.
The connection rates are also expected to be
considerably lower than the current market rates which sometimes run
into hundreds of thousands of shillings.
Commenting on the LMCP, Energy principal secretary
Joseph Njoroge said that all power consumers within a 600-metre
transformer radius will be connected and the charges deducted through
monthly power bills in small instalments. The connection amounts under
the programme will be announced in February but he promised fair rates.
“We are going to undertake connection completely
differently from the way we have been doing it. Economists and engineers
are already working on revised connection rates,” he said. On the other
hand, SWER is a Kenya Power initiative aimed at significantly cutting
its expenses by using a single, thinner and lighter cable as opposed to
the current system that uses two or four cables to connect households to
the nearest electricity pole.
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. The utility firm’s MD Ben Chumo said the design is
popular in rural areas.
“Overall, the cost of connectivity in rural areas
will be reduced given the amount of material that we are going to be
using in the SWER design,” he said.
In a previous interview with the Business Daily, Mr
Chumo indicated that the average amount could be as low as Sh30,000.
The LMCP, whose $135 million (Sh12.2 billion) loan from the African
Development Bank was signed by President Uhuru Kenyatta last week, is
expected to add a minimum 284,200 residential homes and 30,000
commercial customers to the grid.
This translates to an additional 1.7 million people accessing electricity.
Mr Njoroge said that the government’s intention is
to raise the connectivity rate from the current 32 per cent to 75 per
cent in the next four years. This will be important if the country is to
absorb the projected injection of 5,000MW by 2018, which is a capacity
growth of over 300 per cent (from the current 1,652MW to 6,652MW).
The additional power is forcing Kenya Power to
rethink its business model, including turning the country into a 24-hour
economy and making the country’s manufactured products more
competitive.
Team of experts
A team of experts from Kenya Power and the Energy
ministry is working on details of cheaper off-peak electricity tariffs
aimed at lowering production costs for industrialists and spurring
round-the-clock production. Industrialists will enjoy a discount of 40
per cent on current tariffs between 11pm and 5am with the plan expected
to be unveiled early 2015.
The industry discounts will be a follow up to the
recently introduced lower rates for street lighting as the government
looks to reduce insecurity and encourage more night-time commerce.
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