Energy for What?

"Energy For What? Contemporary Energy Issues & Dilemmas in Kenya" explores the details of today’s energy challenges in Kenya, using statistical graphs, diagrams and photographs as illustrations. The Kenya Energy Compendium is organized in six parts as follows.

ONE: In the first section, Introduction to the Compendium, there is a short description of the purpose of the Compendium, followed by basic statistics describing Kenya’s energy supply and demand along with a short comment on the nature of available energy data.

TWO: The second section, Energy in People’s Lives, takes on the perspective of households, looking first at energy choices in rural and urban households as well as popular energy knowledge in a poor neighbourhood of Nairobi. This section also considers the impact of new energy developments in rural areas and concludes with thoughts on educating energy professionals.

THREE: From this grassroots perspective, the third section jumps into Energy Policy and the Dilemmas of Fossil Fuels. The articles here include a review of the assumptions that underlie current policy preferences as well as unpacking Kenya’s Energy Act of 2019 and the role of taxes in power generation. Energy policy thinking, however, rarely includes the dominant fuel used in Kenya, biomass – the wood, charcoal or agricultural wastes used in some businesses and in many homes for cooking.

FOUR: That is why the fourth section asks, Biomass Energy: Renewable, But Is It Sustainable? This section considers the role of women in energy policy decisions and looks at how energy prices affect household energy choices, encouraging the use of biomass. It concludes by arguing, contrary to many policy expectations, that biomass energy is here to stay.

FIVE: Although biomass is the most common household fuel, the fifth section covers centralised grid electricity. Grid electricity, also known as ‘power’, dominates policy thinking and in Kenya, much of this electricity already comes renewable sources. However, electricity from the grid is very expensive, raising the question: Grid Electricity: Renewable, But Is It Affordable? This section identifies what is behind the price Kenyans pay for electricity, identifies additional renewable technologies that might be introduced, and identifies options for financing green power.

SIX: The sixth and final collection of essays is about the future: What Might a Different Energy System Look Like? This is where the impacts of carbon prices, climate change, long distance power lines and smaller distributed energy systems are considered.