Towards 100% Renewable Energy: Incrementing Solar Electrification in Kenya

Over recent years, the electricity demand in Kenya has grown rapidly due to population increase, increase in prosperity, and industrialization. Electricity supply based on fossil sources however, is unsustainable and detrimental to the environment thus many countries are focusing their attention on renewable energy sources (RES). The Kenyan government has set a target of generating 100% of the country's electricity from RES by 2030, with a specific focus on increasing the share of solar and wind power. Kenya has the geographical potential to generate more electricity from solar photo voltaic (PV) than the total electricity demand, however the technical and economic feasibility of PV is complex and depends – in addition to geographical location and availability of resources – also on the local energy system composition and flexibility options. To address these constraints, this paper aims to undertake techno-economic feasibility evaluation of optimizing grid-connected solar PV in Kenya. To actualize this aim, EnergyPLAN was used to simulate energy demand and generation to analyze the technical, economic, and environmental implications of a transition based on PV. Results obtained show that it is technically and economically feasible to increase electricity generation from PV up to 4,601 MW representing 32% of the total generated power up from 212.5 MW representing 6.8% of the total generated power by the end of 2022. The total annual cost for this investment is 970 MEUR compared with 1246 MEUR for operating the reference scenario. This study adds significantly to the national objective of 100% renewable energy generation by 2030. The results obtained further show that optimizing PV presents great benefits in terms of cost effectiveness, CO 2 emissions reduction, reliability improvements and security of Kenya’s power system. Key words: Solar PV, EnergyPLAN, renewable energy sources, technical simulation, market economic simulation. DOI: 10.7176/JETP/14-3-03 Publication date: September 30 th 2024