BY IVY WANGECHI
Kenya is among six African countries that will benefit from the $164 million African Development Bank Group loan to promote the decentralized renewable energy.
This emerged on Wednesday February 16, when the AfDB board of directors approved the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework.
In a statement, AfDB said the $800 million LEAF program will help spur commercial and local currency investments to scale up the activities of decentralized renewable energy companies in Kenya, Ghana, Guinea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tunisia.
“Under LEAF, some 18 decentralized renewable energy projects are expected to be financed, providing access to six million people and businesses, resulting in 28.8 million tonnes CO2 eq. in greenhouse gas emission reductions over the lifetime of the systems,” the statement said.
AfDB added that many African countries still face challenges in achieving universal access to sustainable, clean, affordable and reliable electricity but the number is said to have increased again for the first time in recent years as a result of Covid 19 crisis.
According to the latest SDG 7 tracking report, close to 600 million Africans lack access to electricity.
However, Kenya has done well to connect its citizens to the national grid.
It has increased electricity access from 2.3 million connections in 2013 to 8.2 million by the end of April 2021 thereby achieving electricity access rate of over 75 per cent according Comesac statistics.
The LEAF program was developed by AfDB in collaboration with the Green Climate Fund which approved $170.9 million in concessional financing for it in July 2021
Kevin Kariuki, Vice President in charge of Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth at AfDB, said they are delighted to partner with the Green Climate Fund on the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework.
Kariuki said the partnership will reduce the respective countries’ carbon footprints with active participation of a private sector facilitated by a local currency financing and commercial capita availed under the program.
LEAF will offer concessional finance, credit enhancement instruments and technical assistance to crowd-in private sector investors, including local banks, to finance and accelerate efforts to power Africa for over six years.
“The approval of this program is very timely as it increases the Bank’s toolbox to support the fast-moving decentralized energy access market which complements conventional grid-connected solutions,” AfDB’s acting Director in charge of Renewable Energy and Energy Effiency Department Dr Daniel Schroth, said.
