Kenya Power to carry on its Last Mile Connectivity Program

The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) has announced through a tender notice, its intentions to resume expansion works on its Medium and Low voltage electricity distribution network under the Last Mile Connectivity Program (LMCP).

The aim of the program is to connect 280,475 households in 32 counties to the national grid within a period of three years. This comes after the government of Kenya received funds in the tune of US$ 199m from three multilateral lenders.

The Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the European Union (EU) contributed US$ 132m, of which 75% will be a concessional sovereign loan and the rest will be a grant; while the European Investment Bank (EIB) has also agreed to support the LMCP with up to US $66.3m.

KPLC has already invited consultants to apply for participation in the implementation of the project.

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The Last Mile Connectivity Program

The objective of the project, whose scope of work includes construction of single and three phase High and Low voltage lines, installation of service cables and Energy meters, is to hasten connectivity and network expansion by adopting a new electricity supply model that will assist in overcoming existing bottlenecks in the connectivity pipeline. The model focuses on availing service connection to the customer before engaging him/her to pay for the services.

Earlier, the project enabled power consumers situated within 600m from a step down transformer to be connected to electricity at a subsidized rate of about US $150 down from US $350.

Full implementation of the Last Mile Connectivity Program will facilitate the government’s objective of connecting a majority of Kenyan households thereby achieving universal access by 2020.