Kenya Power is set to join the solar business, which is a move seen to help the utility parastatal protect its future revenue streams as reported by Business Daily.
The publication saw internal documents that described the plan by the energy distribution company about venturing into this market.
“Consumers will benefit from cheaper solar energy generated during sunny hours. The solar plants will include storage with minimum autonomy to cancel out effect of short-duration supply interruptions which has been a major cause of concern among some commercial and industrial customers,” Kenya Power said in the internal documents seen by the publication.
Kenya Power will scout customers seeking to have solar panels installed and contract private firms to do the job. They will then sell the generated power at a discounted rate to the owners of homes and office blocks hosting its solar plants.
Excess electricity will be distributed to homes and commercial entities adjacent to solar panels. The solar panels will remain the property of Kenya Power and the private investors installing them.
This development is quite interesting since Kenya Power raised alarm over clients solar switch last year in November. They noticed that industrial customers who account for around 55% of their revenue were gradually shifted to generating their own solar power which is not good for their revenues.
We have seen private institutions like Strathmore University installing solar panels to generate electricity which they sell excess power to Kenya Power to.
