Business Daily (Nairobi)
Steve Mbogo
2 July 2009
The Government will give out one million energy-saving bulbs in exchange for the ordinary ones to conserve power as hydro-electricity sources fail to meet demand because of poor rains.
Users will be expected to drop off their standard bulbs at designated points in exchange for the energy saving ones in the exercise expected to begin this month.
A standard household energy saving bulb of 18 watts by brands like Philips costs Sh300 while those of brands like Dreamlite and Sannex go for Sh140.
If the government decides to go for Phillips, it will spend Sh300 million and about Sh140 million on other brands without factoring in the procurement, distribution and disposal (of standard bulbs) costs.
The measure is expected to save the country at least 49 megawatts, a substantial amount of power especially at a time when the country's demand is almost overtaking the supply.
The exercise comes at a time when the country is facing serious power shortage due to low rainfall that has starved hydro electricity dams of water.
KenGen announced earlier in the week that it has closed the 14 megawatt Masinga Dam because the water level has been declining steadily due to poor water supply over the last two years.
The country is operating on an electricity reserve margin of 3.5 per cent against the recommended minimum of 15 per cent, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company said.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga also announced that the government will start offering interest-free loans for investors willing to set up local production of energy saving bulbs, solar water heaters and other energy saving devices.
The other incentive will be in the form of the Green Energy Facility that will be established to offer long term loans to farmers and business to install solar, biogas and other renewable energy equipment.
Mr Odinga announced that members of the task force on Development of Green Energy have started talks with several banks to enable the loan facility to be operational by mid August.
"A plan for financing geothermal and wind energy will be discussed when the task force meets in September," said the Prime Minister.
The renewable energy initiatives are expected to get a major boost when an International Green Energy Investor Conference is held in Nairobi in mid September. The government is expected to invite investors to undertake private public partnership projects geared towards generating electricity.
The measures were announced during the inaugural meeting of the National Task Force on Accelerated Development of Green Energy held at the PM's office on Wednesday.
The task force said identification of a list of renewable energy projects that would generate 200 megawatts of electricity by 2012 will be finalised during the next meeting to be held next month.
The task force also reviewed renewable energy projects that it has already identified for development which include a clean coal power project with capacity of 600 megawatts.
The team was appointed last week to promote the development of renewable energy power generation projects and assist with mobilisation of resources for the implementation of the projects including public/private partnerships.
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