The renewable energy market in Kenya has great potential and is growing quickly. A large number of private developers are actively preparing solar, wind and biomass projects to produce electricity to be fed into the national electricity grid. This will lead to cleaner and more reliable energy provision to Kenyans. In the process of dealing with the proponents of these commercial projects, the Kenyan Electricity Regulatory Authority and the Ministry of Mines and Energy have to be able to understand the intricacies of these projects, including their underlying financial models.

RECP in close collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Energy has therefore embarked on organising a training that has enabled key public sector stakeholders in Kenya to better assess the viability of renewable energy projects by better understanding of their underlying financial model.

The training was prepared and implemented by ECA and Carbon Africa between 30 August and 2 September 2016. 16 participants from the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, KETRACO, GDC, KPLC, ERC and KENGEN attended the course that included subjects such as Basic Accounting; Excel Skills; Financial Modeling of Solar, Wind, Hydro, Biogas and Geothermal Power Plants; Taxation and Working Towards a Standardised Financial Model.

The training has contributed to further standardisation of a financial model in the Kenyan regulatory environment and has provided the representatives of the public renewable energy sector valuable insights on the viability of the various renewable energy technologies in the Kenyan context. The participants rated the quality of the training as very high, awarding 9.29 out of 10 during the evaluation.

The trainers aim to carry out a half-day follow-up training at the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in the course of October 2016.