According to SkyPower’s release, the signing will take place this Sunday morning in the United Nations office, Nairobi, during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES). It gave no further details prior to the signing.
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SkyPower Global is a Canadian company and will develop the solar project in a period of five years.
The company, which develops and owns solar energy projects, advised media this morning that it will sign the deal with Kenya’s ministry for energy and petroleum.
Kenya has become an African hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, and SkyPower is proud to contribute to this unprecedented milestone in Kenyas ambitious renewable energy plan, said SkyPower President and Chief Executive Officer Kerry Adler.
“We want Kenya to not only be a consumer of clean solar energy but also a producer of the same and we have reached an agreement with the Kenyan government to lease land in several parts of the country to set up solar power generation plants and a factory to manufacture solar energy materials”, he said. “Sustainable electrification is a central policy issue in Kenya, and we are committed to making this a reality for our citizens, while accelerating economic growth in the process”.
The deal, which is valued at Sh220 billion, will see SkyPower Global lease land from the Kenyan government at commercial market rates initially across the six counties with the project scaled up as and when the need arises.
Kenya now derives about two-thirds of its electricity from renewable sources; hydropower stations and geothermal wells.
The SkyPower team over the past decade has proudly established long-term strategic partnerships with local, in-country developers.
The country does not have solar developments matching to the scale of hydropower and geothermal projects, which account for 38% and 25% of supplies respectively.
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SkyPower is majority owned by CIM Group, a U.S. based transformational urban real estate and infrastructure investment firm founded in 1994 with approximately US $19.8 billion in assets under management.
