The Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has finalised modalities to align with the government’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) to promote economic growth in the country.
The ministry has developed a framework to accelerate the realisation of key pillars in the BETA plan by providing the related services critical to economic growth, value chain improvement, and manufacturing.
The State Department for Energy disclosed that the key achievements aligned with the government’s agenda included increased power generation by 5.44% from 3,076 Megawatts in 2022 to 3,243 Megawatts in 2024, increased power transmission lines by 22% from 7,846 kilometres in 2022 to 9,577 kilometres in 2024, and power distribution lines by 3.2% from 82,210 in 2022 to 84,853 in 2024 as the number of KPLC customers increased by 8.7 percent from 8,919,584 in 2022 to 9,693,954 in 2024.
On the other hand, the State Department of Petroleum’s successes include enhanced capacity, whereby it reduced demurrage costs from 2,227,411.7 KPC Dollars in 2022 to 496,382.5 KPC Dollars in 2024 and increased the incremental flow rate for Kenya Petroleum Corporation per hour in line 5 by 37 per cent from 950 M3/hours in 2022 to 1,300 M3/hours in 2024.
The Ministry’s Cabinet Secretary, Opiyo Wandayi, had hosted the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCoS, Performance and Delivery Management), led by their head, Eliud Owalo, to embark on the vetting exercise of the ministerial performance contract commitments for the financial year 2024-2025.
Other key commitments aligned with the government’s agenda include strengthening the policy, legal, and institutional framework for energy development and accelerating the speed of completion of projects where the Ministry has reviewed the National Energy Policy 2018, and enhancing an energy generation mix that is clean, sustainable, affordable, competitive, reliable, and secure where the Ministry has constructed four institutional Biogas plants, constructed 207 Domestic Biogas plants, completed 45 Domestic Biogas plants which commenced during FY 2022/23 and conducted Geotechnical studies of geothermal fields.
Additional commitments include increasing customer connection in support of universal access to electricity and improving reliability and quality of electricity supply to enhance customer satisfaction and sales revenue growth, which is facilitative of the country’s prosperity trajectory.
The Ministry has undertaken technical validation of Electricity Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution Projects under implementation, developed a power generation and Transmission Masterplan (2025-2045), and developed and submitted to Cabinet for approval the Cabinet Memorandum on Ownership of Last Mile Connectivity Project Assets.
Another commitment includes enhancing exploration and investment in petroleum blocks for development of petroleum resources where the Ministry has promoted petroleum potential through the EAPCE ’25 and reconstituted and published the Petroleum Exploration Block Map.
Additionally, the Ministry will ensure security of supply and distribution of competitively priced petroleum products, and promote the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in households and public learning institutions where the Ministry has developed new infrastructure for Clean Cooking Gas in 40 Public Learning Institutions, completed the development of LPG infrastructure in the pilot 20 Public Learning Institutions and has overseen the distribution of 60,000 6 kg cylinders and associated accessories to households by NOCK.
By Sharon Atieno
