Kenya Power engineers carry out maintenance work at a power sub-station in Mombasa The Kenya Power Company is expected to lose its largely monopolistic market power with more firms moving to solar energy in a bid to cut electricity expenses.
Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) is the latest firm that has applied for a licence to generate its power using solar.
KTDA is seeking to install solar power generators in its twenty-nine factories, a move that will help the company cut almost fifty percent of its power bills. A Kenya Power technician working on a transformer in 2018 File An assessment done on the twenty-nine factories showed that they had enough hours of sunshine and adequate solar resources.
KTDA will through its subsidiary KTDA Power Company (KTPC) invited Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to build solar power plants in its twenty-nine factories.
The IPPs will then design, procure, construct, finance and operate the solar projects. They will also enter into Power Purchase Agreements with different factories which will purchase the generated energy.
KTPC was established in January 2020 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of KTDA holdings limited.
Kenya Breweries and East Africa Maltings in January 2021 also announced that they were seeking regulatory approvals to enable them set up three power plants.
The three include two solar power plants and one thermal generator. The two solar power plants include a 9.3 Megawatts(MW) plants at KBL Ruaraka and another 2.4 MW solar plant in Kisumu. The 2.2 MW thermal generator will be set up the East Africa Maltings factory in Industrial Area, Nairobi.
In 2020, Total Kenya confirmed that they had solarized a hundred petrol stations and that they will be solarizing all their station in the future.
Kenyan entities that use solar power plants include Kenya Ports Authority, Kapa oil, Two Rivers Mall (TRM) London Distillers , Strathmore University and Williamson Tea. Kenya Power engineers carry out repairs at a power sub-station in Mombasa County in 2018 Twitter
