Kenya Power staff at work. [Photo/courtesy]In a plan to seek an increase in the number of homes with electricity, Kenya Power in the last two years started connecting Kenyans to the national grid at no pay.The 34 billion shillings project was launched to ensure that 70 percent of the country was to be covered under the national grid by the end of 2017.Currently, the Global electricity connection stands at 6, 148, 348 people as of 19th June, 2017 in the Kenya Power’s Connectivity Performance Report.New electricity connections in the country increased from 1,253,000 (2015/2016) to 1,306,233 (2016/2017) in a single financial year. New connections from January 2017 to date amounts to 645, 778 connections.Kenya has been implementing power generation expansion initiative in the past years. Installed capacity stood at 1,765 MW as of June 2013. Since then, the generation capacity has increased by 33 percent to the current 2,341 MW as of June 2016. 36 percent of this is from thermal sources, 35 percent from hydro, and 27 percent from geothermal while wind, solar and cogeneration contributed two percent of total installed capacity. More than 57 percent of the new generation is from geothermal.Kenya has had an aim of expanding its geothermal power production capacity to 5,000 MW by 2030, with a medium-term target of installing 1,887 MW by 2017.Amongst the most improved counties regarding electricity connections is Elgeyo Marakwet, according to Kenya Power, it has seen a total of 12,449 households connected to electricity between 2013 and 2017. Currently it has completed construction of Kapsowar 33/11 KV Substation and associated lines to improve quality of power supply.The country’s targets 100 percent access rate by the year 2020 through exploitation of locally available energy sources including off-grid solutions. Kenya currently works with the World Bank to expand off-grid power to enable electricity provision in area not served by the national grid.

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