Rural communities hit hardest by 14pc VAT on solar, clean cooking products
Monday December 21 2020
Kenya is a pace-setter in off-grid solar solutions.
In 2019, it was estimated that there were some five million pico solar products and 700,000 solar home systems in use by Kenyan households.
Kenya has been lauded internationally for progress made towards the 2022 universal energy access target with a reported 75 percent energy access rate today.
Underlying these numbers is a fact well-known by industry practitioners: the national grid only reaches about 50 percent of Kenyan households. Twenty-five percent of households are served by solar energy.
A 34-year-old mother of five who runs a grocery business in a village in western Kenya recently acquired a solar home system to boost her day to day activities both in the house and for her trade.