To fulfil our potential, we must not fear failure.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Industrious, innovative people are essential for a country to reach its full potential. Yet a nation\u2019s health is also defined by energy accessibility. Kenya is blessed with human brilliance and natural resources, but rampant energy poverty<\/a> is a sedative, suppressing our vitality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me give you an example of how it holds us down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of my neighbours are farmers who rely on kerosene to light their homesteads in the evenings after labouring on their fields. Modern agriculture has allowed some people to use electricity in, for instance, poultry farming, but it is unreliable and often goes out in bad weather. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last March, I walked into my family\u2019s house in our village in Bungoma County\u2019s South District only to hear complaints of a blackout that had lasted two days<\/a>. Light winds had caused a tree to fall on the power lines and the utility company took days to fix it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People were concerned not just about the outage but also the impact on their health and budgets of burning more relatively expensive kerosene in their homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Such local issues, though serious for the affected, are part of a much larger national deficiency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2020, Kenyans used 11,462 gigawatt-hours of electricity. The installed generation capacity was around three gigawatts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That compares very unfavourably to similarly populated South Korea (also around 50 million people) that has an installed capacity of 129.1 GW<\/a> and produced 552,165 GWh in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n The low energy consumption is intolerable for a country like ours that has made political and economic progress and has masses of potential.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Annual economic growth averaged<\/a> 4.7 percent between 2015 and 2019 and Kenyans now have a per capita income of around $4,500<\/a> when adjusted for the cost of living, taking it into low middle-income status. <\/p>\n\n\n\nMoving forward<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n