The Naivasha Sus­tain­able Ener­gy Con­fer­ence made me proud to be part of a fam­i­ly of dream­ers and doers. Orga­niz­ers and par­tic­i­pants car­ried them­selves not as del­e­gates but as stew­ards of Kenya’s future. They showed that ener­gy is more than just megawatts; it’s about liveli­hoods, jus­tice, and dig­ni­ty. I strong­ly com­mend all part­ners for host­ing a gath­er­ing that pri­or­i­tized action over slogans.

The truth is clear. Ener­gy isn’t just about the num­bers on a gen­er­a­tion chart. It’s about the cost on a fac­to­ry bill, the light on a child’s desk, the silence of a smoke-free kitchen, and the jobs that stay in Kenya because pow­er is reli­able. In Naivasha, the coun­try spoke loud­ly about turn­ing poten­tial into prosperity.

Con­sid­er com­pet­i­tive­ness. Kenya can­not suc­ceed in glob­al mar­kets if pow­er remains expen­sive and unre­li­able. Del­e­gates sug­gest­ed aim­ing for 5-7 US cents per kilo­watt-hour for special econom­ic zones. Achiev­ing this would enable fac­to­ries to expand, boost exports, process food local­ly, and reduce infla­tion­ary pres­sure. Afford­able pow­er is no longer just a tech­ni­cal issue; it is cen­tral to our eco­nom­ic future.

Then comes the liveli­hood test. Ener­gy must serve the boda rid­er dream­ing of charg­ing an e‑bike afford­ably. It must pow­er the farmer whose solar pump should­n’t bur­den them with crip­pling bills. It must keep a welder’s arc steady in Gikom­baand a kinyozi’s clip­pers buzzing in Kib­era. It should also reach the youth in Kisumu who envi­sions a serv­er farm, and the moth­er in Turkana who deserves a smoke-free kitchen. When ener­gy pol­i­cy touch­es these lives, Kenya advances.

Jus­tice is the heart­beat. Today, Kenyans are pay­ing the price of inef­fi­cien­cy through high tar­iffs and missed oppor­tu­ni­ties. Between July and Decem­ber 2024, the sys­tem reduced 511.72 GWh of geot­her­mal pow­er, which is 7.1% of all ener­gy pro­duced dur­ing that peri­od. When clean ener­gy is wast­ed, the pub­lic pays twice—first through high­er bills, then through the lost chance to cre­ate jobs.

There is some progress worth not­ing. Net meter­ing rules now allow house­holds, schools, and busi­ness­es to feed excess pow­er back into the grid. Kenya has revived the High Grand Falls Dam, esti­mat­ed to cost about KSh 337-340 bil­lion, to increase reli­able capac­i­ty. Ken­Gen has announced plans to add 1,500 MW of renew­able ener­gy and stor­age with­in the next decade. These are promis­ing sig­nals, but the real test is how it impacts house­holds’ finances.

To accel­er­ate progress, we need to sim­pli­fy the sys­tem. Ener­gy is often dis­cussed in tech­ni­cal lan­guage, but it should instead be com­mu­ni­cat­ed clear­ly with trans­par­ent steps. One pro­pos­al from Naivasha war­rants urgent atten­tion: com­bin­ing pow­er from numer­ous small renew­able pro­duc­ers under a strong anchor to enable scale, bank­able pow­er pur­chase agree­ments, and low­er tar­iffs. As Benard Odote of the House of Pro­cure­ment remind­ed par­tic­i­pants, a trust­ed aggre­ga­tor like Ken­Gen can unite scat­tered projects into a pipeline that financiers will sup­port at scale.

Let us mea­sure what mat­ters. Pub­lish a time­line link­ing every project and pol­i­cy to two out­comes: low­er tar­iffs for indus­try and house­holds, and greater reli­a­bil­i­ty across all coun­ties. Track progress quar­ter­ly so cit­i­zens can see the curve bend­ing in a down­ward direc­tion. That is how pol­i­cy becomes prosperity.

The same clar­i­ty should guide green hydro­gen. Kenya should lead, but the first ben­e­fi­cia­ries must be Kenyan work­ers and fam­i­lies. Green for Life teach­es that big sys­tems only mat­ter when they serve the indi­vid­ual. A sin­gle megawatt is a mir­a­cle when it pow­ers an incu­ba­tor, lights a home­work desk, or keeps vac­cines cold in a dis­pen­sary. That is the ener­gy future we owe our children.

My charge is sim­ple. Treat ener­gy as the cur­ren­cy of dig­ni­ty. Remove red tape. Empow­er aggre­ga­tion. Hon­or net meter­ing. Build the grid that unlocks night­time demand and reduces waste. Pay com­mu­ni­ties fair­ly. Cel­e­brate every dol­lar saved on a bill as a vic­to­ry for indus­try, health, and hope. Until every Kenyan can afford clean, reli­able pow­er, our tran­si­tion remains incomplete.

Think green, act green!