KUDURA wins prestigious 60 Decibels ‘Top Impact Award for Mini-grids.’

KUDURA Power East Africa Ltd. has been recognised by 60 Decibels Energy Top Impact Awards 2024, winning the Top Impact Award for Mini-grids. The win was announced today by 60 Decibels who describe the awards as ‘existing to recognise and celebrate energy organisations generating the most impact within the sector.’ KUDURA achieved the top score in the mini-grids category, based on 60 Decibels benchmarking of the impact performance of 140+ energy organisations from 2021-2023, encompassing Impact, Customer Experience and Access. It is a valuable acknowledgement of KUDURA’s hard work to deliver clean solar power to some of Kenya’s most remote communities.

RVE.SOL’s Founder-CEO, Vivian Vendeirinho said of the award, “We are delighted to be recognised by 60 Decibels with this prestigious award. Our work is all about impact – for both people and planet. This award acknowledges that we are making a difference in people’s lives, delivering access to clean power, often for the first time, and supporting communities to make productive use of that power in order to promote sustainable economic development. ”

With support from Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company InfraCo Africa, KUDURA is expanding its portfolio of mini-grids to Kenya’s Turkana county. In Turkana County, the new solar-battery hybrid mini-grids will deliver electricity to over 4,400 new connections in 2024/2025, mostly for rural households, small business customers and public sector institutions. KUDURA seeks to demonstrate the value of adopting a multi-utility approach to the delivery of renewable power, clean water, and affordable appliance financing as a stimulus for rural economic development.

InfraCo Africa’s Senior Asset Manager, James Wakaba said, “As joint venture partner in the scale-up of KUDURA mini-grids, we at InfraCo Africa and PIDG are tremendously proud of this achievement. The KUDURA team has worked extremely hard to overcome challenges to develop and deliver clean power for communities living in some of Kenya’s hardest to reach locations and we are proud to be a part of their journey.”

Alongside InfraCo Africa’s investment, the KUDURA mini-grid project has secured grant funding from Agence Française de Développement’s Green Mini-grid Kenya Facility, with additional funding from the European Union. PIDG Technical Assistance has provided the project with a sizable grant to support a variety of capacity building initiatives and technical studies which have been undertaken during the projects’ development phase.

The Energy Impact Top Awards will form part of 60 Decibel’s new report, Why Off-Grid Energy Matters 2024 which will be launched on 13th March at the Transforming Energy Access Forum.

60 Decibels is a global, tech-enabled impact measurement company that brings speed and repeatability to social impact measurement and customer insights. They provide genuine benchmarks of impact performance, enabling organizations to understand impact relative to peers and set performance targets.