Evidence-Based Policy Making: Insights and Policy Recommendations for the Implementation of a Clean Energy Transition in Kenya.

Abstract

With ambitious targets to drastically increase economic activity over the next decade in order to propel itself to become a middle-income country, Kenya’s future is undoubtedly energy intensive. Through the achievement of its bold and aspiring goals, Kenya is poised to become a regional economic giant with the capacity to strengthen its position as a global leader in renewable energy production. However, current energy capacity expansion plans will see Kenya drastically ramp up fossil fuel generation, significantly increasing emissions and regressing progress made towards its climate and renewable energy targets. Therefore, Kenya is at a crucial stage of its national development with critical decisions to make regarding its future energy expansion and production. The use of energy systems modelling as a method to provide key insights for evidence-based policy making has risen in importance in energy planning globally. Such an approach can provide crucial insights and projections on the impact of potential policy decisions, creating pathways to be adopted within policy. As a result, this study employs long-term energy systems modelling to explore a series of potential future scenarios for Kenya’s power sector, providing insights into their generation, total production, and costs that can assist national policy making. Specifically, this research utilises OSeMOSYS modelling software to produce a Clean Energy Transition scenario (CET) as one possible future for Kenya’s power sector to increase renewable energy production under rapidly intensifying demand. The critical insights gained in this research were employed to suggest seven key policy recommendations for Kenya’s power sector.