@blackberry. You need to visit e-solar/Kenital solar or Telesales. The total consumption of your appliances will need to be assesed to arrive at the size of panels/battery/inverter.

Energy saving bulbs are recommended (LED type - not the type being given by KPLC). This will ensure the battery is discharged smoothly.

Thanks Sky5 will try telesales. I made enqieies to kenya solr and kenital but sijapata majibu
experiences?....anyone? estimate costs? dont want just a slaesman's side of story

try a company called the kenya data networks it has both solar and wind solutions.try to find out from their website

@Gekko they started such projects when the water level went down.they call it powersol.they have solar panel,battery and wind turbines

Many of the large transport companies that operate fleets of trucks do not actually own the tyres that their vehicles run on! They lease them from tyre management companies [eg, Tread Setters]. It works cheaper than holding a huge stock of tyres in their warehouses.

Now; one time a long serving and loyal driver was retiring and the employer wanted to give him a fitting send-off. So they decided to give him the 40-tonne truck that he had driven for the last ten years.

The hand-over ceremony was done and the retiring driver was asked to collect his lorry the following week. When he went, he found the truck all cleaned up and re-painted but it had no tyres - just rims!

Upon asking about them he was told "Si unajua tyres sio zetu. Wewe fanya hivi, enda nunua zako ulete tuku wekee halafu uchukue gari yako."

That was a big problem: one truck tyre costs about sh50k and he needed 22 of them: that's a cool sh1.1m - which he didn't have of course!

So what has this got to do with solar power?

Sunshine is free and we have plenty of it. Unfortunately, the process of converting it into electricity is very expensive. It will cost you about a million bob to replace your KPLC connection and enjoy the same appliances that you have in your house.

It's like the free truck without tyres!!

Even solar lighting doesn't make economic sense when you have KPLC. They payback time is toooooo loooooong - something like 25yrs. You can only do it as a matter of principle; not economics.

If you are worried about KPLC's reliability, then what you need is a good UPS - without the panels

@mukiha, what KVA UPS would suffice running a house, say 6 hours? (assuming power will have returned by then). 10,000 KVA? and do you have an idea of the cost implications? I wonder also if the UPS will only serve appliances?

The cost of installing solar lighting has dropped markedly over last couple of years.
Challenge is; who is offering the best quality & package for domestic use?

I installed a 300 litre solar water heater in my house 5 years ago. Cost me 120k back then (I hear prices have dropped). My power bill dropped by 45% in month one, and has remained the same within 10% of that through power price hikes and dips. I have recently added 2 instant showers as I have a large family and many guests. No effect on monthly bills.


A friend built his home in 2007 and installed a full house solar system from Australia. Cost him 1M. His power bill is 200 bob monthly and his home is bigger than mine.

This could be what I was talking about