The Kenya Power Company is out to convince Kenyans to embrace electricity cooking (e- cooking) as a way of conserving the environment.
The power utility firm is seeking to promote the adoption of cooking among its close to 10 million (households) customers.
This comes as KPLC continues to receive complaints from the public about the high cost of electricity and frequent power outages.
The firm’s Manager for Coast region Eng. Phineas Marete says Kenya Power is partnering with stakeholders to drive the uptake of e-cooking across the country.
“Kenya Power aims to raise awareness of e-cooking for increased uptake among its customers,” he said, adding that it would lead to reduced fuel costs, environmental impact and improved health.
He says their huge untapped potential for e- cooking in the country as majority of Kenyans still relied on wood fuel and gas for cooking.
Eng. Marete says it is the desire of the power company for Kenyans to adopt e-cooking as the next phase of clean cooking strategy.
“E-cooking has many benefits like improved indoor air quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions,” he said adding that e-cooking was cleaner and easier in the long run.
He says major cities like Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu and Nakuru with available and reliable power supply due to their connection to the national grid would be an ideal ground for encouraging large scale e-cooking adoption.
The top KPLC regional official says lack of awareness and acceptance of new forms of cooking among the majority of Kenyans was a significant barrier to e-cooking.
He says previously, lack of reliable power supply was a major challenge in e- cooking but underscored that the national grid now practically reaches every corner of the country.
Eng. Marete expressed the views at a forum organized by the power utility firm for journalists based in Kwale County.
“KPLC is now setting up mini grids and upgrading existing ones to provide additional capacity as a possible way to address both the electrification and the clean cooking challenges,” he said.
He says the e-cooking campaign also seeks to avail task specific appliances like cooking tops, pressure cookies, electric rice cookers, kettle and microwaves to the majority of Kenyans.
Eng. Marete at the same time disclosed that Kenya Power would be rolling out smart prepaid meters to businesspeople in the small and medium enterprise sector to curb high rates of non-payment.
He says using prepaid smart meters enable a customer, especially Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises to pay for the exact amount of energy consumed.
Eng. Marete says they would see to it that over 10,000 local businesses and households in the coastal region received new payable smart meter boxes which he termed as a game-changer able to revitalize the electricity sector.
“The smart meters are part of advanced metering infrastructure that will facilitate two-way communication between KPLC and its customers,” he said, adding that it will enhance customer satisfaction.
“The process of issuing smart meters for customers who applied for the same is on top gear and we are determined to ensure value for the money the customers pay for electricity,” he said and urged those who receive bills to pay regularly.
By Hussein Abdullahi
