Greater Mombasa Greenfield Energy Investment

The Greater Mombasa Greenfield Energy Investment is a project within the Energy theme. It began as a broad proposal by the Economic Development and Investment Council for Greater Mombasa (EDIC) for a privately financed renewable or hybrid power project to give industry on the coast cheaper and more reliable electricity. In October 2026 EDIC set it out as the Mombasa Industrial Area Solar Micro-Grid: a shared, captive solar-plus-battery micro-grid serving a cluster of manufacturers in the Changamwe Industrial Area of Mombasa County, estimated at US$5 to 10 million and to be financed, built, owned and run by a private energy service company.¹ It is at concept and pre-feasibility stage, with no capacity, site, customer or developer yet named.

What it is

EDIC first described “a utility-scale or C&I renewable/hybrid solution to stabilise power costs and improve reliability for manufacturing, logistics, and tourism assets”, and said it “will scope demand, identify candidate sites, prepare the concept note and mini-model, and engage IPPs, lenders, and EPC partners”.² “C&I” refers to commercial and industrial customers, and “IPPs” to independent power producers. The “View Details” link on that priority now leads to EDIC’s page for the solar micro-grid, published on 21 October 2026.³

The micro-grid brief

EDIC’s project brief, which names the sponsor as “EDIC & Partners”, proposes “a shared, captive solar-plus-storage micro-grid serving a cluster of manufacturing clients in the Changamwe Industrial Area”. Solar panels and batteries would together deliver “firm, reliable power”, reducing dependence on the national grid and displacing diesel generators, and power would be supplied directly to industrial customers under long-term contracts. The first customers would be anchor tenants with large and stable loads, with a wider cluster to follow.

A private energy service company would “finance, design, build, own, and operate” the micro-grid and sell its power under long-term power purchase agreements or a lease-to-own structure, at tariffs set below the combined cost of grid power and diesel backup. Government’s role would be licensing and facilitation, and “100% of project capital” would come from private equity and commercial debt, without sovereign guarantees. EDIC presents it as a model to be repeated in other industrial zones in Mombasa and along the coast. Its web page adds that EDIC is seeking US$100,000 to 250,000 of catalytic funding to carry out energy audits and load profiling, preliminary engineering, a regulatory assessment and a high-level financial model, and to secure letters of intent from anchor tenants, before full feasibility, permitting and financial close.

Comparable projects near Mombasa

Several coast manufacturers have already installed solar on their own sites. Mabati Rolling Mills opened a 2.9 MWp rooftop system at its Mariakani plant in September 2025, developed and financed with GridX Africa and installed by Orb Energy, producing more than 4,200 MWh a year.⁴ Coastal Bottlers in Mombasa commissioned a 400 kWp rooftop system in October 2022, developed by Safi Power with funding from Camco’s Spark fund, reporting electricity costs more than 25 per cent lower.⁵ Bamburi Cement announced plans for 14.5 MW of solar at its Mombasa plant in 2024.⁶ Equator Energy commissioned a large solar plant for Mombasa Cement at Vipingo in 2025.⁷ These serve one firm each; EDIC’s proposal differs in sharing one system among several firms.

The coast’s power supply

Kipevu III, KenGen’s 120 MW plant in Mombasa burning heavy fuel oil, is now the only operating thermal power station on the coast. In March 2026 parliamentary committees told KenGen to convert it to liquefied natural gas before its contract expires in 2031, warning that failure to convert or extend it “could trigger a power crisis” at the coast; KenGen said operation beyond 2031 depends on LNG infrastructure.⁸ Kenya Power’s accounts show it paid about KSh 13.1 billion for 461 GWh from Kipevu III and about KSh 12.1 billion for 489 GWh from the Rabai thermal plant in 2024/25, roughly KSh 25 to 28 per kWh, among its costliest sources.⁹ The government plans a 1,200 MW gas-fired plant near Mombasa as a public private partnership, which would run on imported LNG; no gas supply has been secured.¹⁰ The coast’s largest renewable plant is Malindi Solar in Kilifi County, 52 MWp (40 MW to the grid), developed by Globeleq and exporting power since December 2021.¹¹

Rationale

EDIC’s case is that firms in the Changamwe Industrial Area “face persistent power instability, including grid surges, voltage dips, and frequent outages”, which has forced them onto diesel generators that raise costs, damage equipment and add emissions, making unreliable and costly power “a binding constraint to industrial competitiveness”. The brief gives no figures for outages or diesel costs.

Other records bear on the claim. Bamburi Cement’s chief executive said in 2024 that its operations had been shut down 111 times in a year by load shedding and power disruptions, mainly in Mombasa, at a cost of about KSh 400 million in one month, and that a kiln needs six to eight hours to reheat after an outage. Kenya Power’s planned outage notices regularly include Changamwe, one in May 2025 listing industrial and logistics sites including the inland container depot, fuel depots and Kensalt.¹² Nationally, Kenya Power reports outage measures improving in 2024/25, with average interruption time falling from 120 to 113 hours a year, but it publishes no coast-specific figures.¹³

On cost, the base tariff for industries using more than 15,000 units a month fell to KSh 13.74 per kWh in July 2024, while special economic zones pay KSh 10.¹⁴ Pass-through charges are added to the base rate; for September 2026 readings they included a fuel energy cost charge of KSh 3.00 and a foreign exchange adjustment of about KSh 1.14 per kWh.¹⁵ The coast’s thermal plants are among Kenya Power’s most expensive sources, and a JICA survey of the sector, citing the energy regulator’s statistics, puts the Coast region at about 18 per cent of national electricity use.¹⁶ The prospect of Kipevu III leaving the system in 2031 is the clearest coast-specific supply risk.

Status and timeline

EDIC listed the broad energy priority on its website by October 2026, and published the micro-grid brief on 21 October 2026, describing its status as “Concept / Pre-Feasibility”. EDIC’s September 2026 overview of its Coast pilot names “an industrial solar mini-grid” as one of two priorities that had advanced into pre-feasibility or feasibility during 2025 and 2026.¹⁷ The next step EDIC describes is the catalytic preparation phase of audits, engineering and anchor-tenant letters of intent; no funder for it has been announced.

The national rules have changed recently. The net-metering regulations took effect in July 2024, capping commercial and industrial systems at 1 MW and crediting only half of each unit exported to the grid.¹⁸ On 12 November 2025 the National Assembly lifted the moratorium on new power purchase agreements with Kenya Power, capping wholesale prices at US$0.07 per kWh.¹⁹ On 8 May 2026 the Energy (Electricity Market, Bulk Supply and Open Access) Regulations came into force, letting large consumers buy power directly from generators.²⁰

How the project is being procured

No Terms of Reference, tender or PPP listing exists, and none would be expected: the project is designed to be wholly private, with an energy service company contracting directly with its industrial customers. The licensing route is the main open question. Under section 117 of the Energy Act, only generation “for own use of a capacity not exceeding one megawatt” needs no licence; a company selling power to several separate firms would on this reading need a generation licence and, if it runs its own wires to their premises and bills them, distribution and retail supply licences too.²¹ This is this page’s reading of the Act; EDIC’s brief lists “regulatory licensing” among the government support it needs but does not say which licences.

If the micro-grid instead used Kenya Power’s network to reach its customers, the 2026 open access regulations would apply. They allow an eligible consumer to buy in bulk from a generation licensee with the regulator’s approval, and give access to the network on payment of wheeling or use-of-system charges, but only where the consumer’s load is at least one megavolt-ampere on the distribution system, and on condition that the consumer accepts the utility’s rostering of power cuts for maintenance. The regulations do not say whether several smaller firms may combine their loads to meet that threshold. Draft mini-grid regulations remain ungazetted, and the regulator’s licensing rules of 2025 define an exempt “isolated mini-grid” as one not connected to the national grid, which a micro-grid in Changamwe would not be.²²²³

Who is involved

EDIC is a multi-stakeholder council for Greater Mombasa chaired by Dr Kevit Desai. Its brief names the sponsor as “EDIC & Partners” without naming the partners. Kenya Power buys and distributes electricity, KenGen operates Kipevu III, and the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority licenses generators, distributors and retailers, approves bulk supply and wheeling agreements, and sets tariffs. No energy service company, lender or anchor tenant has been named.

• EDIC: Mombasa Industrial Area Solar Micro-Grid
• Kenya Power

Concerns and counterpoints

No one has commented in public on the EDIC proposal. The points below come from the wider debate on private and captive power in Kenya, as general context.

Utility revenue and other customers

Kenya Power lists “declining grid-based electricity demand” as large users turn to their own supply among its principal risks.²⁴ After the open access regulations were made, analysts at Standard Investment Bank said Kenya Power risked losing retail revenue from its top commercial clients and would have to live on wheeling fees, and the World Bank was reported to warn that domestic consumers could pay more if large consumers leave, because Kenya Power remains bound by long-term contracts with generators.²⁵ A columnist in Business Daily, Ibrahim Kitoo, called for cost-reflective tariffs so that the utility can recover those fixed costs, warning of a “utility death spiral”.²⁶ A micro-grid that took a cluster of Changamwe’s industrial users partly off the grid would help them but shift some of the grid’s fixed costs onto the customers who remain.

Firm power and batteries

Solar alone does not supply power at night or in cloudy spells, which is why the brief pairs it with battery storage. Battery packs have become much cheaper: BloombergNEF’s 2025 survey put the average price of a stationary storage pack at US$70 per kWh, 45 per cent lower than a year earlier, though installed systems cost more than the packs alone.²⁷ How many hours of storage a factory cluster would need, and at what cost per unit, is the kind of question the proposed load profiling would answer; the brief gives no capacity for either the solar or the batteries. The government’s answer to firm power at the coast is the planned gas plant.

Licensing, space and the open access threshold

As set out above, a shared micro-grid serving several firms falls outside the one megawatt own-use exemption and, if it wheels power over Kenya Power’s lines, inside the one megavolt-ampere threshold of the open access rules. Open access customers must also accept Kenya Power’s rostered maintenance cuts, which sits awkwardly with a project whose aim is reliability. No study of roof or land space in Changamwe for a shared system has been published.

Land and communities

Coastal energy projects have met strong local opposition. In June 2019 the National Environment Tribunal cancelled the environmental licence for Amu Power’s 1,050 MW coal plant at Lamu, finding public participation inadequate, in a case brought for Save Lamu.²⁸ A rooftop or small ground-mounted micro-grid inside an existing industrial area would need far less land than a utility-scale plant, but neighbours of Changamwe’s factories, many of them in dense housing, would still need to be consulted on any new lines, battery stores or ground-mounted arrays.

Sources

• Project Brief: Mombasa Industrial Area Solar Micro-Grid, EDIC, October 2026.
• The Energy (Electricity Market, Bulk Supply and Open Access) Regulations, 2026, Kenya Law.
• The Energy (Net-Metering) Regulations, 2024, Kenya Law.
• Project Brief: Economic Development Investment Council, EDIC, September 2026.
• Energy Act, 2019, Kenya Law.
• Kenya Power Integrated Annual Report 2025, Kenya Power (38 MB, linked rather than uploaded).
• Data Collection Survey on Optimal Use of Energy in Kenya, JICA, March 2025.
• Mombasa Industrial Area Solar Micro-Grid, EDIC.