Power growth with cheap electricity

“Are you in the private sector, also transferring the benefits of reduced cost to your customers or you are just adding that to the bottom line?”
This question was posed by President Uhuru Kenyatta during the recent State House Energy Summit.

This is indeed a vital question that we need to constantly ask if Kenyans are to progressively enjoy affordable electricity.

Development literally runs on energy. Without affordable, accessible and reliable electricity business cannot flourish and industry cannot even operate. Together with innovation, these are the four wheels that will steer forward the vehicle of electricity at a fast and sustainable speed.

In parts of rural Kenya where electricity remains a pipe dream, business is often undermined. The shelf life of perishable products like fresh vegetables and fish is severely reduced, leaving rural entrepreneurs at the mercy of middlemen who buy their prices at minimal and not optimal prices. In the same way that the Government has connected electricity to 22,242 primary schools, there is need to set up secure, spacious and well-equipped electricity hubs across rural Kenya where rural entrepreneurs can easily access electricity-dependent facilities like refrigeration. Such a step would greatly boost the 56 per cent electricity accessibility that Kenya now enjoys.

The second wheel is affordability. This is what the President had in mind when he posed the earlier question that I would now extend to the legislature: “Can legislation ensure that savings from reduced cost are mostly passed on to the consumer?” This may be considered just like the principle of minimum wage. Electricity affordability is ultimately the highest sponsor to electricity accessibility. Let’s also genuinely consider and embrace the renewable energy potential that is always beckoning!

Economist David Stern rightly noted, “energy use plays an important role in determining the level of economic activity.” Accordingly, the higher the access to affordable electricity, the more intense productive economic activity will be. But for this economic activity to flourish the third wheel of electricity reliability must come into play. Blackouts should be the exception, not the rule. The World Bank has in the past reported that at least 25 African countries were suffering from rolling blackouts. This ends up costing these countries billions of dollars. As challenged by President Kenyatta, our energy experts must now be zealously pragmatic even as we contemplate allowing competition in this life-transforming sector.

The fourth and final wheel of electricity is innovation. Unless we use electricity to innovate, we will ultimately underutilise it. This can be made possible if we keep asking the question, ‘how can we innovatively tap into electricity to enhance industrialisation?’ With this mindset, when people in rural areas finally access affordable and reliable electricity, they will use it not just to power their homes, but their farms too hence toting green money to support their livelihoods.