Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen) has been recognized for leading the Eastern Africa region in clean energy production.
The power producer was granted honorary recognition in the 2021 Climate Action Awards East Africa, a competition that shines a spotlight on people and organizations with groundbreaking innovations and ideas to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The regional awards, which are courtesy of the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), seek to showcase successful solutions that can accelerate the transition to low carbon economies in Eastern Africa.
KenGen, which was feted alongside listed telecommunication service provider, Safaricom, was recognized for its pioneering work in reducing carbon emissions under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
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Clean energy production
KenGen Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Rebecca Miano accepted the honorary award and said the firm was committed to making its contribution to the reduction of the effects of climate change by scaling up clean energy production.
“KenGen has been focusing on the production of green energy and currently more than 86 percent of the energy produced by the company is from clean sources namely wind, hydro and geothermal,” said Miano.
In late August, KenGen was cleared by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to sell an equivalent of 4.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions earned since March 2020.
The carbon credits were earned from six (6) projects that include Olkaria II Geothermal Expansion Project, the redevelopment of Tana Hydro Power Station, the optimization of Kiambere Hydro Power Station, Olkaria IV Geothermal Project, Olkaria 1 Units 4&5 Geothermal Project and the Ngong’ Wind power project.
Earlier in 2019, KenGen joined the United Nations Global Compact, and earlier this year joined an elite list of global multinationals to commit to the United Nation’s business ambition for 1.50C campaign, becoming the first company in Kenya’s public sector to do so.