IN SHORT: Coca-Cola has received permits to install 3.98MW of solar capacity across its Nairobi and Kisumu bottling plants, joining a wave of Kenyan manufacturers building their own power generation as grid electricity costs remain high. Kenya’s total captive power capacity reached 630.1MW in December 2025, with solar accounting for 326.7MW, more than half the total.
Coca-Cola has been cleared by Kenya’s Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority to install 2.076MW of solar at its Embakasi bottling plant in Nairobi and 1.907MW at its Kisumu manufacturing site, as Kenya’s corporate solar flight from the national grid accelerates into a structural trend. The permits were among 24 issued for captive power generation between July and December 2025, a period that added 26.2MW to Kenya’s privately held generation capacity.
- Kenya’s total captive power capacity reached 630.1MW in December 2025, up from 603.8MW six months earlier, with solar photovoltaic accounting for 326.7MW, or 51.86% of all captive capacity.
- Coca-Cola joins a long and growing list of manufacturers who have moved to own-generation: Bio Food Products, TotalEnergies Kenya, Maisha Mabati Mills, Simba Cement, Unilever Tea Kenya, British American Tobacco, Africa Logistics Properties, Bidco, Mabati Rolling Mills, Centum Real Estate, and Devyani Food Industries have all made the shift.
- The primary driver is cost: grid electricity in Kenya has become sufficiently expensive that the capital cost of solar installation is increasingly justified on payback periods alone, independent of sustainability considerations.
- Falling prices of solar components, including panels, inverters, and batteries, have accelerated the economics further, making captive solar viable at smaller scale than was practical five years ago.
- EPRA issued 24 permits for own power production or supply in the six-month period, indicating the pipeline of corporate solar projects remains active.
The significance extends beyond individual companies cutting costs. When large manufacturers install captive solar at scale, they reduce their off-take from the national grid, which has downstream implications for Eskom’s Kenyan counterpart KPLC’s revenue base. Kenya faces the same structural dynamic playing out across Africa: as solar costs fall and grid tariffs rise, the commercial rationale for grid defection strengthens. The 630MW of captive capacity now represents a meaningful parallel power system operating outside the utility’s billing structure.
The Bigger Picture: Kenya’s captive solar market crossing 600MW is a landmark that has received almost no analytical attention relative to its significance. This is not rooftop solar for domestic households. This is industrial-scale generation by manufacturers who are making long-term capital allocation decisions to permanently reduce their dependence on the national grid. Each megawatt of captive capacity represents a corporate that has concluded the grid is too expensive, unreliable, or both to serve as its primary power source. As that calculation becomes more common, the investment case for grid-scale renewables in Kenya shifts: the question is no longer just whether Kenya can generate enough power, but whether it can do so at a price that retains its industrial customer base.
Source: Business Daily Africa
