Kenya Power engineers at work. [Photo/Courtesy]
Kenya Power is targeting to bring down the timeline for connecting new commercial customers to less than two months.
Acting Managing Director and CEO Dr. Ken Tarus said that the Company is focused on streamlining the customer connection process and is carrying out continuous follow-up of all premium applications through regional marketing officers tasked with enhancing investor relations.
“We have managed to reduce connection timeline from 97 to 63 days. We are working to further bring this down to 50 days. We are focused on enhancing our infrastructure through investment in new substations and additional distribution lines to enable us connect more customers to the national grid,” said Dr. Tarus.
He was speaking in Nairobi this morning during a meeting to update on reforms that have been undertaken to improve Kenya’s business environment in the last three years.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 advocates for access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. In addition, Vision 2030 identified electricity as a key enable of economic development.
Kenya Power targets to achieve 70 per cent access to electricity by the end of the current financial year and universal access by the year 2020.
To achieve this mark, the Company is undertaking various projects including implementing the Government-led Last Mile Connectivity Project that is targeting to connect households to the grid at Sh15,000.
To improve the quality of electricity supply, the Company is continuously undertaking maintenance programs to replace broken poles, reconductoring and refurbishment of existing substations to enhance their capacity.
Since 2013, 72 new substations have been constructed and upgraded under the Kenya Electricity Expansion Project (KEEP) at a cost of $102 million from the World Bank.