This archive report was first published on 22 September 2021.
East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) is set to break away from Kenya Power's electricity supply by 2030, marking a significant shift towards renewable energy in the country.
According to KBL managing director John Musunga, the brewer plans to invest Sh22 billion in a strategy that includes the production of biofuel, aiming to source 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 in all of its facilities.
As part of this plan, EABL will generate at least 9.3 megawatts at its Ruaraka facility and 2.4 megawatts from solar power in Kisumu, reducing carbon emissions by 95 percent (about 42,000 tonnes of carbon per year) and creating over 900 direct and indirect employment throughout the supply chain.
Kenya Power, a publicly-traded business on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), is facing a significant blow as major customers like EABL migrate to self-generated solar power, leaving the company with surplus electricity production and idle power generators.
Payments for idle electricity are passed on to customers due to a take-or-pay clause in contracts negotiated between the government and power providers, which requires Kenya Power to purchase the agreed-upon quantity of electricity regardless of necessity.
Kenya Power provides electric metering, licensing, invoicing, emergency energy delivery, and customer relations as a national electric utility corporation, distributing electricity to industry, offices, schools, hospitals, and residential customers, as well as providing telecommunication companies with optic fibre connectivity via its optical fibre cable network.
