About the Project
Kenya’s tropical climate and volcanic red soil make it an ideal place to cultivate tea, and for over a century tea has been a major cash crop and the leading foreign exchange earner for the country. The third largest tea producer in the world, the Kenyan tea industry supports the livelihood of millions of its citizens. But unreliable power supply and excessive drought in recent years has lowered Kenya’s tea production, affecting tens of thousands of smallholder farmers whose livelihoods depend on the crop.
Given that electricity is a key cost component in tea processing (accounting on average for up to 30% of production cost), large tea estates in Kenya have installed their own hydropower plants to establish cost competitiveness. Once constructed, the hydropower plants carry low technical risk, limited running costs and a long lifecycle of up to 100 years. The plants significantly reduce production costs in the long term, and help ensure high quality tea by improving reliability and continuity of pow