State-owned electricity transmission and distribution company, Kenya Power, has revealed plans to rollout electric vehicle charging stations across the country.
The move by the company according to local media reports, is to create new streams of revenue for Kenya Power and boost demand for electric vehicles in Kenya.
“As part of our implementation plan, we are developing appropriate infrastructure and building internal capacity to enable us to support the use of electric vehicles across the value chain,” said Kenya Power Managing Director Bernard Ngugi.
“To this end, we plan to set up charging facilities across the country beginning with Nairobi to support direct charging of vehicles,” added Mr Ngugi.
Kenya Power is expected to set the electric car charging points along major highways, parking lots and malls. Kenya Power joins Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen), which recently announced that it is also investing in electric car charging systems.
Scaling up the project will see both Kenya Power and KenGen generate revenue from vehicle owners who will need to charge their vehicles. But the success of the project will be heavily dependent on the technology picking up locally.
The high price, insufficient charging infrastructure and energy-storing batteries have been cited as the main challenges for the adoption and growth of the electric vehicle industry in African countries such as Kenya.
The average price of an electric car is Sh6 million ($54,000) which compares to a second-hand SUV imported into Kenya. Imported used cars from Japan and the Middle East have offered an affordable route to vehicle ownership in Kenya and dominated the market for decades.
But Kenya has now joined the global push to promote the use of electric vehicles and reduce reliance on petrol and diesel so as to reduce carbon emissions as propagated by Western countries such as the US and Germany.
