More Kenyans see the light with solar as power bills soar

For the past three December holidays, Nicholas Kyalo, a tenant in Kajiado town, has religiously carried his solar kit with him back to his village in Kibwezi for lighting.

His village is yet to be connected to the national power grid. But with portable solar equipment, his Christmas has always been lit, so to speak.

The 35-year-old father of two bought the small solar kit in 2016 on a flexible payment plan from solar firm M-Kopa. It has a pair of light bulbs and a storage battery, slightly larger than the size of a TV decoder.

One bulb is used for security light at night outside his rented single-room house in Kajiado, where he operates a small welding shop. He has relied upon solar for his lighting needs, come rain or shine.

That’s despite the fact that the rental house is connected to electricity from Kenya Power.

Kenya Power’s supply has been relegated to powering his TV and woofer.

Still, he looks forward to acquiring a bigger solar kit, which comes with a larger capacity solar panel alongside storage battery, to eventually power all his needs. “Once I graduate to a bigger one, I’ll gift this one to my younger brother back in Kibwezi who is still using kerosene for lighting,” he said when we paid him a visit at his home. Mr Kyalo came to learn about the solar kits when his welder friend one day had more than enough work on his hands and tagged him along to fit panels for customers.

He says the savings he has made over the years from a lower electricity burden have helped him to acquire his own welding machine and a grinder at a total cost of Sh30,000.

Previously, he leased the two machines at a cost of Sh1,000 daily, which he found taxing. M-Kopa was founded in October 2012, initially offering basic solar lighting, radio and charging kits targeting off-grid homes. Over the years, its basket of offerings has expanded to include smart TVs and smartphones.

The Nairobi-based firm pioneered the pay-as-you-go model for solar, which largely favours low-income households. Customers pay a deposit, followed by daily mobile money payments. Once they’ve paid off the system, typically over a year, they own it. 

Some critics have however termed the deal exploitative to the low-end market considering the total sum they pay over the period. The solar firm has connected over 750,000 households in East Africa to solar. Its panels are mainly sourced locally from Naivasha-based Solinc East Africa - the assembler of solar panels in Kenya.

The Naivasha factory makes panels of between five and 300 watts. The five to 10W range serves the packaged systems (lanterns and lighting kits), like the one Mr Kyalo owns.

The larger panels serve the integrated plug-and-play solar home systems like TV, stand-alone institutional and utility-scale markets. Equally, there is one manufacturer of solar batteries in Kenya – ABM, the maker of Chloride Exide batteries. After completing his solar kit payments, Mr Kyalo set out to acquire two smartphones, one for his wife, from M-Kopa through its loan product Solapesa. He is among the many who have gained from buying other gadgets as well.

Other companies running the pay-as-you-go model in Kenya include UK firm Azuri Technologies, Indian company Orb Energy, Germany-based Mobisol. With a smartphone, Kyalo says he has seen his fortunes improve since he’s able to market his services on social media as well as get specifications from faraway clients, simply by exchanging sample pictures on WhatsApp. “Previously, when all I had was a feature phone, clients had to physically come to my shop when making orders that matched their liking or I go to their places,” observes Mr Kyalo. That would discourage most potential customers outside Kajiado.

The solar firm’s CEO and co-founder Jesse Moore says it will soon roll out energy-efficient home fridges, following a successful pilot project in Machakos. “During the pilot phase, most households noted it was ultimately way cheaper to cook in bulk and refrigerate leftover food for later use,” Mr Moore said in an interview.

“We’re doing pre-launch marketing for the fridges that should take about two months, essentially testing their price-points.”

M-Kopa has managed to attract global funding as well as heavyweight partners. Japanese firms Sumitomo alongside Mitsui & Company recently acquired minority equity stakes in the company. Back at Kajiado, the welder says his neighbours are equally turning to solar in efforts to cut their bills.

“On a number of occasions when the area is plunged in darkness people are always amazed how come I have lights on,” he beams.

Evangelical about the benefits of solar, he takes us across the dusty dirt road to a family friend, a landlady, Wangare, who acquired a solar kit after he shared with her his testimony.

She no longer bothers to keep candles in the event of an outage. Following the recent passage of the Energy Bill 2017 into law, households with solar panels will now be able to sell surplus power to Kenya Power. The State has set a universal electricity access target of 2022.