According to Kenya's Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), heavy domestic and industrial consumers of electricity will soon be required to use solar energy to heat water.
The policy is meant to ease pressures on the nation's electrical production grid.
ERC director general Kaburu Mwirichia told reporters, "Major consumers of power will soon be required to use solar for water heating on their premises. The solar heating regulations will be forwarded next week to the Ministry of Energy. The building code already includes installation of solar energy," Nairobi's The Nation newspaper reported.
The ERC director general said that there is a new government emphasis on the development of renewable energy that includes solar energy, geothermal and wind, which are more reliable compared with hydro and thermal, which the country has been relying on, adding that the ERC would soon begin conducting energy audits in factories and buildings that consume a lot of energy in order to encourage the efficient use of available electricity.
Wood fuel, despite its harmful effect on the environment, still constitutes 68 percent of Kenya's total primary energy consumption.
Petroleum, which supplies 22 percent of the nation's energy needs, primarily for transport, has become increasingly expensive negatively impacting the country's growth.
By. Charles Kennedy, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com
Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More