Nakuru County schools are among those that will benefit from Sh1 billion donation by the Spanish government to install solar panels in 380 primary schools in remote areas.
Speaking at Siana boarding primary school in Narok on Wednesday, the project overseer, Engineer Elijah Kirui said the ministry has already installed solar panels in 22 schools in Narok County and were in the process of identifying more schools that will benefit from the project.
Kirui had toured the school to assess the progress of the project with a team from the Energy Ministry.
The engineer added that the installation of these panels will go a long way to improve the performance of the pupils as well as providing energy for the government’s laptop project which is underway.
At the same time, Narok County executive for energy and environment, Vivian Sereti disclosed that the county government will also help in the installation of solar systems to the residents since it would be a bit tricky to install electricity in Maasai Manyattas.
Sereti added that her ministry is negotiating with the county government to allocate more money for rural electrification since electricity is an important infrastructure for development.
Siana Boarding primary school headteacher David Nkane said that the school has improved drastically in terms of performance since the installation of the solar panels. He attributed the improved to the pupils being able to study during late hours.
“Solar panels also save us a lot of money since the generator was consuming 15 litres of petrol per day which is quite expensive. Sometimes we were unable to manage the high costs of fuel,” Nkane said.
The primary school has benefited from a Sh10 million grant from the Spanish Government fund.
In Nakuru, regions affected by lack of electricity include Visoi, Banita, Solai, Warseges and Kihingo among others.