What Kenya Can Learn from South Africa's Experience with Private Solar Power

Rapid, unregulated uptake of private solar risks creating what economists refer to as a ‘utility death spiral’. With sufficient foresight, Kenya can unlock the potential of renewables sustainably, and avoid the costly and unequal challenges other nations, like South Africa, are facing. Writes Benjamin Horsell, of Ariya Finergy.

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At the Solar Africa Expo, held in August 2026 in Nairobi, the excitement for solar was palpable. Ariya Finergy, a leading company within Kenya’s solar industry which was exhibiting there, was inundated with proposals for solar farms, questions about battery technology and queries about the benefits of going off-grid. 

Halfway through the expo, Kenya suffered a nationwide grid outage, creating even more interest in the potential of solar and batteries for the Kenyan market.

The Paradox Kenya is Facing

At the recent ‘State of the Grid’ press briefing, on 11 August 2026, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company’s (KPLC) CEO, Joseph Siror, warned that intermittent renewables comprise too large a share of the grid, and are the cause of mounting instability and rising costs. However, it is exactly those problems – grid instability and rising cost – which are also the drivers of accelerating solar uptake. 

Whilst regulation can slow the increase in large-scale solar and wind farms, alleviating the imbalanced energy mix, the grid should also adapt to the opportunities and challenges posed by the growing movement towards smaller-scale, private solar energy (captive solar).

Captive solar + battery systems are increasingly becoming the most financially sound option in Kenya. For industrial operations they offer a respite from high grid tariffs and costly downtime due to the grid instability. 

This is showing up in the data: from 2023 to 2025, captive solar increased from 154.9 MW to 326.7 MW and, in March 2026, Kenya imported an estimated 1.4 GW of solar technology from China, much of which would have been for captive solar projects.