Barclays Bank Kenya and the UK Government has hosted an event today that brought together players in the Kenyan renewable energy space with potential investors from the United Kingdom (UK). The event was put together with an aim of catalyzing and facilitating investment in the renewable sector by the private sector.
This comes on the back of an MOU that was signed in May 2016 by the Kenyan government and UK for renewable energy cooperation which the UK pledged 300M pounds in support.
There are a lot of opportunities in the power sector in Kenya. Kenya has an ambitious plan to industrialize as a key contributor to the realization of Kenya’s Vision 2030. It set itself a target of adding 5,000 megawatts of electricity to the national power grid by next year. This can be realized by renewable power production in Geothermal, Wind, solar and Biogas. Kenya is already producing 90% of its power through renewable energy so it’s really not a new path.
The number of customers connected to the power grid are 4.1 million at the moment and this is projected to grow by up to 80 per cent in the next four years.
Barclays’ interest in the sector is from a corporate financing solution perspective. They have provided Ksh. 13.4B to Thika Power to increase capacity 60 MW, arranged finance deals for Kenya Power and Kengen, including for renewable energy projects. Additionally, they have invested in “Light up Kenya”, which is initiative by Care Kenya that intends to link 100,000 rural homes with solar energy.