A rural electrification project funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) failed to connect the targeted 30,000 businesses due to technical constraints on the power distribution network, forcing the businesses to continue relying on their own energy sources.
The Last Mile Connectivity Project (LMCP), funded by a Sh15billion AfDB loan, had initially targeted to link up the small commercial customers to the grid, but as the project closed in July, none had been connected.
Officials from the Kenya Power and Lighting Company explained that this is because the grid lines in the rural areas could only sustain low voltage usage and not heavy commercial users, as had been initially expected.
The targeted commercial users include those running farms or workshops that use equipment with high electricity consumption, and they were left unconnected as they need larger meters, which could not be connected to the power lines used for the last-mile connectivity project.
“The project was unable to meet its initial target for connecting small commercial customers. This shortfall was primarily due to technical limitations within the existing distribution network, where most of the LV (low-voltage) lines are configured for single-phase supply,” said the AfDB in a project completion report.
“As a result, three-phase meter connections, typically required for formal commercial establishments, could not be accommodated under the prevailing infrastructure.”
A single-phase meter is a simple power metre monitoring electricity flow from a single line, and is preferably used in homesteads and small businesses considered to be of low power consumption.
Three-phase meters, on the other hand, monitor electricity flow from three different lines and are used for high power-consuming entities like industrial or commercial users, such as those that need to run pumps or heavy machinery in their businesses.
Due to the power line limitations, heavy energy users in rural areas will need to wait longer to be connected to electricity, as KPLC will have to upgrade the lines or extend the three-phase lines to meet the needs of the heavy users.
However, smaller businesses like hair salons, barber shops, chicken incubators, tailoring shops, small eateries, and retail shops in rural areas were connected because their power demand is low and could fit into the domestic category.
“While these enterprises contribute to local economic activity, they were registered under the domestic billing system due to their residential location and single-phase connection and thus were not classified separately as commercial customers in the official project records,” noted the AfDB.
In addition to the commercial customers, the project was expected to connect at least 224,952 residential customers to the grid, of which it managed 217,535, a performance rate of 96.7 percent.
It was, however, reported that the energy demand among the household customers is too low to meet the cost of maintaining and operating the lines, forcing the government to subsidise the cost to keep KPLC afloat.
“Government policy is to compensate KPLC for the maintenance and operational costs of rural schemes that are unable to compensate them fully for their services; however, this compensation is always delayed and has put financial pressure on the KPLC,” AfDB said.
