Kenya is one of the best places to drive electric vehicles (EVs). Kenya’s grid is very green thanks to awesome geothermal, wind, utility-scale solar, and hydropower plants. All of these make up 93% of Kenya’s generation capacity.
Kenya’s installed generation capacity is sitting at over 2,700 MW, which now exceeds the current peak demand of around 1,900 MW. At night during the off-peak periods, this demand goes down even further, to about 1000 MW. So where can all this excess and very clean nighttime electricity go?
Nopia Ride, a taxi-hailing service that only uses electric cars is scaling up operations in Kenya. Nopia ran a pilot phase from August 2018 to March 2019. Three used Nissan Leafs imported from Japan and the United Kingdom were used in the pilot program. The pilot phase allowed the company to test its business case and showcase the business plan to potential investors with real trip data to validate its case.
