Ruto: Kenya To Upgrade National Power Grid From 3 Giga Watts To 100 Giga Watts By 2040
Kenya intends to expand its national grid from 3 Giga Watts to 100 Giga Watts by 2040 while addressing climate change by ensuring that 100 percent of the power in the grid is renewable.
President William Ruto stated on Monday at the KICC during the opening of Africa’s climate summit that Kenya’s current 3-gigawatt grid is 92 percent renewable and will be 100 percent renewable by 2030.
He said that the African continent, which is rich in minerals and resources, is capable of meeting all energy needs with renewable resources.
“The continent has enough potential to be entirely self-sufficient with the mix of wind, solar, geothermal, sustainable biomass, and hydropower,” President Ruto told delegates on Monday.
“In fact, Africa can be a green industrial hub that helps other regions achieve their net zero strategies by 2050,”
According to Ruto, one of the challenges is bridging the investment gap so that the continent can meet its energy needs.
He believes that this can be addressed by creating sufficient demand to provide incentives for appropriate private investment in energy infrastructure development.
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At the same time, President Ruto urged delegates to capitalize on Africa’s unprecedented geoeconomic opportunity, especially given the availability of key minerals in Africa.
According to Ruto, Africa should now pursue value-addition processes such as smelting, refining, assembly, and even the production of electric vehicles (EVs).
He noted that while mining of battery-critical minerals such as nickel, lithium, and cobalt is estimated to generate around $11 billion, value-added activities such as refining these minerals into industry-grade metals quadruple the revenue to $50 billion.
” If we consider the end-to-end value chain for electric vehicles, including the battery pack and all other components, the market value skyrockets to an astonishing $7 trillion,” President Ruto said.
“What these figures clearly demonstrate is that Africa can no longer afford a minimalist ‘short-termist raw-material-based approach’. The time has come for us to break out of the shackles of low ambition.”
Ruto: Kenya To Upgrade National Power Grid From 3 Giga Watts To 100 Giga Watts By 2040