[car engine rumbling] [upbeat energetic music] [Scott Tinker] How far does the park go?

[Guide] It's about 4,200 kilometers square.

[Scott] Wow.

[Guide] It's quite big, actually.

Wow, the sun is out.

Beautiful.

Welcome to the African Sunrise.

[Scott] Thank you.

- It's different, eh?

[Scott] It's just amazing to have this savanna so close to the- - To the city.

- city.

- Four and a half kilometers away.

[Scott] I've come to Kenya to learn about expansion of the electric grid.

Nairobi, the capital, is rapidly growing, as are cities throughout the developing world.

More than 100 million people move to cities each year in search of employment and other opportunities, and many of them settle in slums.

In fact, one billion people now live in informal settlements.

Governments are striving, and often struggling, to provide electricity to these new citizens to help improve their lives.

Expanding the grid into the slums sounds like it should be easy since existing infrastructure is nearby.

But the many unexpected challenges that Kenya Power is facing here, trying to electrify Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums, are the same faced across the developing world as cities try to expand their electric grids.

[energetic music] There are nearly three billion people today who still live with little or no energy.

And what I want to know is how they'll finally get it.

So this is sort of what it was, and that's the future.

- That's the future.

[both chuckling] - I'm Scott Tinker and I study energy.

Come with me around the world to meet people and communities as they Switch On.

[energetic music] [tranquil music] ♪ ♪ To learn about Kenya Power's initial steps in Kibera, I talked to their principal marketing officer, Jael Mwadiloh.

[Jael] We have people call themselves cartels.

[Scott] Cartels.

- The cartels moved in and they started selling power to the locals.

- So, the electricity is illegal?

- Yeah, we used to have, yeah, illegal power.

That's why we came in here.

We moved in, we could not communicate to anybody here because they didn't want to see strangers around.

- Okay.

When was this, Jael?

What year about was this?

[Jael] Three or four years?

[Scott] Three or four years ago?

- Yeah, it was very difficult for us to convince the cartels to join us.

- Yes.

- Because you see, they were getting a lot of money.

We had to talk to them.

We engaged them, we elected them as the village elders.

- Did that provide some jobs as leaders?

- Yeah, we did.

- Yeah.

- We gave them jobs.

- Yeah.

- The elder had to get two teams to come and dig the holes, and erect poles.

- I see.

- But our main aim was to change the lives of the people in the settlements.

- Right.

- Yeah, so we made sure that the amount of money we are charging them per every connection, is affordable.

- How does that work?

How do people here pay for electricity?

- We have kiosks.

- Okay.

- Where you can buy tokens.

- Can we go see one of the kiosks?

- Yes.

[Scott chuckles] [Scott] How much does a month of electricity cost in a typical home.

[Jael] Not much.

Maybe 1,000.

[Scott] So 5 or $10 per month?

[Jael] Yeah.

[Scott] And can people afford that here?

[Jael] Yeah, they can.

- Hi, how are you?

- I'm okay.

- So you can sell me a token?

- Yes, so that one is 2.6.

[Scott] 2.6 units?

- Yeah, for 100.

- So a dollar's worth of electricity, 2.6 units.

- Yes.

- Thank you.

- Okay, welcome.

[Scott chuckles] [upbeat music] Next, I met with David Mwaniki, Kenya Power's director of infrastructure.

So, I'm looking at the pole that the local people installed.

- Yes.

- Working with Kenya Power.

- Yes.

- Right here.

- So, what we are seeing is that, each of that cable now, goes to a household.

Every house has a keypad.

- Okay.

- Just like a phone.

- All right.

- So, once you buy the units you buy- [Scott] Yes.

- You get a code.

You feed into the pad.

[Scott] In your own house.

- And it is recorded, the number of units.

[Scott] I see.

- So once you use those units, and they are over.

- Okay.

- Then after that, now it switches you off.

- So, it tell your house has a unique code.

[David] Yes.

- And that comes up to this switch box.

[David] Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

[Scott] It gives you that many units of electricity.

[David] Yes, and most of the residents don't have a regular income.

[Scott] Yes.

[David] They buy as they wish.

Yes, they buy as they wish.

- Right next to it, Mafuta Taa Makaa.

[David] Yes.

[Scott] What does this say?

Swahili?

[David] Mafuta taa is kerosene, they usually use it, some of them could use it for lighting.

- Okay.

- Or for the stoves.

- Or lamp oil?

- And also the stoves, also for cooking stoves.

- Okay.

- And the makaa is actually the charcoal.

- Charcoal.

- For each of these containers is like half a dollar.

[Scott] So, charcoal here, we have kerosene there.

[David] Yes.

- So this is sort of what it was?

- Yes.

- Still is.

- Yes.

- And that's the future.

- That's the future.

[Scott and David laugh] [gentle upbeat music] [Scott] So, this is a school?

[David] Yeah, it's a nice place to be.

- This school has been electrified?

- Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

- Just recently?

- We've been able to electrify.

We've been able to supply clean energy to the residents here.

We improve their quality of life.

You know, there are people who are the lower end of the economic scale.

[Scott] Right.

- So there are people who, once they get clean energy, there are a lot of other benefits.

Besides the houses, it's also the public lighting.

So the public lighting improves the security.

- Sure.

- Especially for women.

[Scott] Safety.

[David] Security is very- [Scott] It's safe, isn't it?

[David] Especially the informal businesses as you find most of them are by women.

It ensures that there's more hours of business and increases the incomes at household level.

- So, from illegal electricity, no roads, and very little infrastructure to poles, lines- - What you can see.

Yes.

[Scott] And roads.

[David] All these poles you can see now.

[Scott] It's phenomenal.

[David] No, it's phenomenal.

[Scott] Yeah.

[David] Yes.

- Did you grow up with electricity when you were young?

Did you have electricity?

- No, I didn't.

I had no interaction with electricity during my early days.

For studying at home, we would use kerosene lamps.

And also in school, it was the same thing.

Until I went to high school, actually.

That is when I was able to interact with electricity.

Like I said, it's just by accident that I became an electrical engineer.

[David and Scott laugh] - That's perfect.

- Yeah, that's a transformation, rather.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

- But that's the opportunity that these kids will have.

- Yes.

Yes.

And to serve Kenyans in this capacity.

I think to me it is a good opportunity.

[Scott] You're the head of infrastructure for all of Kenya Power.

[David] Yes, I am.

[Scott] It's a big job.

- Yes, it is a big job.

Very challenging, also.

- How much of the electricity, not just here- - Yes?

[Scott] But broadly.

- Yes?

- Across Kenya.

- Yes?

- Is still illegal?

How much work is still needed?

- What we are saying is our losses are about like 20%.

Twenty percent of the energy cannot be accounted.

- So that only 20%?

- Yeah, only 20%.

- For an outside perspective, I met with Eric Mwangi, an independent consultant to the Ministry of Energy.

There's a virtuous cycle that can go on.

Electricity comes, people start to improve their jobs.

As they make more revenue, they can pay their bills.

This is all good.

But getting there has a lot of challenge.

- That's where the rubber meets the road.

So what is the experience of somebody who's just been connected?

You know, maybe you've been using a coal iron, you know, and cooking with firewood or whatever, and you now have an electricity connection.

But if that power shorts twice a week.

Thrice a week.

- That wood look pretty good.

- Yeah, it damages your appliances, your fridge now is not working properly.

[Eric] You go back to how you were living before.

- Yeah.

- The irony is, I mean, if you look at the bottom of the pyramid where you would have affordability issues.

- Yes.

- The per unit cost of energy is so much higher between your kerosene, your firewood, your charcoal.

They pay three, four times, what an upper income family would have.

- Sure.

- So, the best way to reduce the costs is to give them a steady supply.

[Scott] Yes.

- And a reliable supply.

And they will change the way they live.

- We visited one of the major urban slum areas, Kibera, but starting to see electricity.

Tell me a little bit about that.

How's that going?

- It's a tricky issue because- - Still some illegal line tapping going on.

- Lots of that, lots of that.

- Right.

- So, you have one connection supporting, you know, multiple homes, brings up issues of, you know, safety, brings up issues of grid stability because you have overloads and the infrastructure can't support the loads that are being put on the network.

And again, it gets to a point where it becomes a part of, you know, the communal understanding of this is how we live.

So, it becomes very difficult now, you know, several years later to say, well, you've not really been paying for this connection or you've been paying, but you've not been paying the utility.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

[Eric] For the connection.

- Sure.

- And that's still a big, a big sticking point.

[upbeat rhythmic music] - Well, thanks for meeting me this morning.

You grew up here your whole life, huh?

- Yeah, my whole life.

- William Opiyo is one of the local leaders that Kenya Power identified, to help install power lines and connect residents to the token system, so they could buy electricity from Kenya Power.

This is one of your crew?

[William] Yeah.

Yeah.

- But when I visited, they were removing cartel's power taps.

Where did they learn how to do this?

- Here in Kibera.

[Scott] In Kibera?

[William] Yes.

[Scott] Here he goes.

[metal clanking] [upbeat music] So, that's a Kenya Power box?

[William] Yes.

[Scott] So, he would be removing illegal connection?

[William] Yes.

[upbeat music] When the cartels found that we have erected poles, we want to remove them from the power, they started chopping the droppers so that they can fix their power.

- So, Kenya Power put in the poles.

- Yeah.

- And brought legal electricity.

And then the cartels said, "No, we'll tap into it with drops."

[William] Yeah.

- Illegally.

Can we see one of those here or not?

Can you see, can you point to the illegal wire?

- Yeah.

- Can I tell which one it is?

- I can see.

- Which one?

[William] That one is illegal connection.

- Which one are we looking at?

- That one.

- Right here?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- That one is illegal connection.

- Okay.

[William] Even that one.

[Scott] And this one?

[William] Yes.

[Scott] So there's still a lot of illegal connections?

- Yes.

- Is it half illegal, or more or less?

- More.

[Scott] More than half is illegal?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

[Scott] Still.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

And the reason that's still there, like, why doesn't somebody go take it down?

- Somebody?

- Who would do it?

- We are the one, we are supposed to do it.

[Scott] You?

- Yes.

[Scott] Yeah.

- To remove all illegal connection.

- Okay.

- They told us that they don't have money to pay us.

- Ah.

- So that we can do that work.

[Scott laughs] Yeah.

- So, let me make sure I understand.

The partnership was there for a little while.

[William] Yes.

- Using you and a local team.

- They're still using us.

[Scott] Still using.

- But they not paying us.

- They're not paying you.

[laughs] That's a good deal.

[William] Yes.

[William and Scott laugh] - So, what do the people feel about that?

If we were to go in and ask somebody, what do you think about the cartel or Kenya Power?

What would they say?

Do they know?

- They want token, but Kenya Power, they didn't do enough job for people to enjoy power.

[Scott] Okay.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So it started, but it didn't finish.

[William] Yeah.

Yeah.

[people chattering indistinctly] - Wow.

So William, these are homes?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

These are homes.

There are eight.

[Scott] Eight homes?

[William] Yeah.

[Scott] And the families within each one?

[William] They're using illegal connection.

- All stolen?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Stolen.

- Okay.

- Yes.

[Scott grunts] - Hello.

I'm Scott.

- Dominic.

- Dominic.

- Yeah.

- It's nice to meet you.

- Yeah.

- Thanks for letting us come into your home today.

[Dominic] Yeah.

[Scott] And visit.

I can see you use a lot of electricity.

What's this?

What's this up here?

[Dominic] Token, but it is not completed.

[Scott] What is it?

- Yeah, they removed all sockets, so that he can use for illegal connection.

- Oh, this was Kenya Power's.

[William] Kenya Power's.

- And it's empty.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And this is the illegal.

[William] Yeah, illegal.

[Scott] Okay.

[William] Yeah.

Yeah.

- Have you ever had an electrical accident?

Like you got shocked?

[Dominic] Yeah.

Yes.

- Yes?

- That is obvious yes.

- Okay.

So, it's not very safe.

- It's dangerous.

[Scott and Dominic laugh] - You're laughing.

'Cause it's scary?

- Even now he's using a... You see?

[Scott] Oh, I see.

Yes.

That looks pretty scary.

- The roof.

Yeah.

- There's raw wires hooked up into aluminum roof.

- If you remove that wire, the light will go off.

- Oh, boy.

That's his ground.

- Because he's using a live wire from the pole.

- Yeah, from the pole.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Okay.

[people chattering indistinctly] I mean, tell me, what happens with illegal power like that?

What are the concerns?

- You know, the cartels used to take live wire only.

There is no neutral.

- There's no neutral.

- Yeah.

- So there's a hot wire coming off.

I mean what's, I mean, that's got to have killed people?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So many people died because of that.

Even dogs, cats, children.

- Children.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So when it rains- [William] Yeah.

Yeah.

- Everything is metal.

- Even this house, you touch this house.

- Yeah, boom.

[William] Yes.

- Wow.

How long would it take, if let's say Kenya Power came in and said, "All right.

William, get your team.

Go remove all the illegal power in Kibera."

How long would that take?

- Three months.

- Three months?

- Yes.

[laughs] - Wow.

[gentle music] - You just were up on this pole.

What were you doing?

- Up there, I have been found that there is two meters.

They have been disconnected and I get them back to the normal way.

[Scott] Back to tokens?

- To token, yeah.

- I'm trying to understand the relationship between the cartel.

- Yeah.

- And Kenya Power.

Is there pressure from the cartel on Kenya Power?

- There's pressure that's in both sides.

[Scott] Yes.

- If you can see cartels, you know these people, we stay together.

Some of them were in neighborhood.

[Scott] Right.

- Don't you see?

- Yes.

- And yet, somebody like me, I can come out because I'm working within the KPLC.

And I can come out to disconnect the illegal connections.

- Right.

Does that put you at risk?

- It's too risky.

You see the cartels, they organize themselves, they come together.

[Scott] And they come after you.

- Like now, they are where we are now, you can just walk.

You are just walking, doing your work.

You just come in between the crowd of people.

[Scott] Right.

- With the pangas, knives, sharp objects.

You see, they start now beating you, and yet you are unaware.

You see, so from there, even you can go to the office, you can even find there is record there.

[Scott] Right.

- Yeah.

Even especially our boss.

[Scott] Yes.

- There is even a day he has been threaten.

Even can been even shoot by a gun.

- Really?

- Yeah.

It's even a day, we have been staying to his home overnight there, at night.

[Scott] Right.

- Taking care of him.

[Scott] Right.

- Because of the cartels.

They say that they'll come to attack him overnight.

- What do you think the apartments and the businesses want?

Do they have to work with a cartel because they're scared?

Or would they prefer to get their power from Kenya Power?

- You can find this drop-in of the tokens come to the house.

Like this one.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- You can see cartel come with a panga.

They cut it off.

[Scott chuckles] So if he cut it off, he come to the patient, and ask, "Do you see now you don't have electricity?"

- Right.

- "Don't you see your neighbor's electricity?"

Why don't you come to me?

Leave about this for Kenya Power."

Use this one.

Mine is always on.

- So this is a battle between cartel and Kenya- - And the Kenya Power and us.

- And you.

- Yeah.

- And you're stuck in the middle.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- And you see the challenges we face.

[Scott] You grew up here in Kibera?

- I was born in Kibera.

Up to date, I'm still here.

Got three kids.

If I can talk even in front of God, I don't have even a single cent in my pocket.

I don't know even what I'm going to eat for the lunch.

Do you see that's a very big challenge.

- That's huge.

- And yet we work in a very big company.

- Right.

- A Kenya Power Electric Company.

- And when was the last time you were paid?

- Payment of us was the lastly payment was last year.

May.

- In May.

[Electrician] Up to date.

Can you imagine of that?

[Scott] Seven months without- - Seven months without payment.

We have house to rent.

Still now me, I have almost about 16,000 house rent.

If I don't have all that money to pay down, we'll be kicked off.

- Your whole family.

- With my family.

[Scott] Three kids.

- You see now?

Maybe you can be our good eyes.

You can be go there.

[Scott] Yeah.

- Talk for us.

[Scott] Right.

- Ask them what was the reason.

Why?

- We'll do what we can to help.

[somber music] Had these workers really not been paid in seven months?

I went to see Geoffrey Kigan, Kenya Power's head of security services to try to find out.

Hello, how are you?

Geoffrey, thanks.

We visited with David and Jael a couple days ago.

And Kibera is very positive.

We went back today to visit again.

Many of the boxes on the poles had been tapped around.

- Tampered with, yeah.

- And so, the cartel had come back with some illegal connections, and so we wanted to come visit with you and make sure we just understood your perspective on that.

- There's a cartel that when we connected people legally, we push them out of business.

[Scott laughs] And unfortunately, they're coming back because they want to gain from power connections.

- Right.

- So they force you not to use the legal power.

- The people there.

- The people there because actually they control the villagers, anyway.

So then anything good that comes to the slum, including water, including every other- [Scott] All the services.

- Yeah.

Have to be coordinated by them.

So then we have agents among those villages, village headmen or the cartels.

I'm very careful using that word cartels.

So, then they become appointed people in those slums.

- People within inside.

- We want to have agents out of these people to be a casual contractors, for them to earn a commission for safe power connections.

- Okay.

- To ensure that everybody's connected or rather is consuming power, the legal power, as opposed to the other one in their area, in the areas they control.

- Right.

- The more people you bring on board.

And the more revenue that comes, the more the commission.

- You know, we were just there this morning, and there was a group of 15 or so young men that went with us.

They were our security.

But they were also, or at least in the past, they had been people working on commission or on contract for KPL.

- Yeah.

- And they were the ones taking out illegal connections and putting in the legal.

But they said that progress has slowed a lot.

They aren't able to do that as much.

Are you familiar with their efforts or?

- Yeah, I think, but that was a small amount, number of people.

We have more than 400,000 connections.

- Oh, boy.

Okay.

- Within those illegal or rather informal settlements across- [Scott] 400,000 connections?

- Yes.

- In Kibera alone?

- Not Kibera alone.

- Oh.

- All the slum.

- Yeah.

- Or rather informal settlements.

Within Nairobi, there are several.

- So, four or five people per connection.

That's a couple million people.

- Yes, and- - Okay.

- And that is why I was saying the commission is not a small fee because if all of them will actually, you know, consume, and agree on a percentage- [Scott] Yeah.

- It will be a reasonable amount for them to be able to assist us, yeah.

- Sure.

And it seemed like it was almost a two-steps forward.

All the things went in and then one step back, and now you're trying to take another two steps forward.

[Geoffrey] To bring it back.

- Right.

- But now with them, you know, the reason why we moved in and invested, what was invested there, was to ensure they have that safe power.

[Scott] Yes.

- And then of course, the revenue comes as a result.

[Scott] Yeah.

A win, win, win.

- Win, win, win.

- When do you plan to begin this new next phase?

Is that starting to happen now or?

- Yeah, that is something that is currently under discussion.

You see, it's a new phenomena.

We thought we had get rid of the problem, but I think the surveillance bit, maybe we dropped the ball somewhere.

- Yeah.

- So, we'll want to pick it up again.

- Yeah.

- So then, now, we counter that problem.

[Scott] Right.

- Before it, you know, it takes it back to zero.

- Geoffrey, thanks.

I appreciate our visit.

[laughs] - Thank you so much.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

[Scott] So, what exactly is going on here?

I'm still not sure I figured it out, but I think it's something like this.

Informal settlements, like Kibera, lack formal government or utilities.

So informal governments, cartels, spring up to provide and sell those utilities, like water or stolen electricity.

Kenya Power paid the cartels to put power lines on cartel turf.

- We had to talk to them.

We engaged to them.

We elected them as the village elders.

[Scott] If I understand it right, those new village elders were part of the cartels and may still have some connection to them, but working with them has allowed Kenya Power, outsiders, to sell electricity in Kibera to people who were once the cartels customers.

- When we connected people legally, we pushed them out of business, and they're coming back.

[Scott] The cartels then cut those connections and use Kenya Power's grid system to sell Kenya Power's electricity for their own profit.

[William] That one is illegal connection.

- Which one are we looking at?

[William] That one.

[Scott] Right here?

- Without communication cable, that is illegal connection.

[Scott] For Kenya Power, it was a double-cross.

For the cartels, it was smart business.

For Kibera residents, instead of paying by the token for safe electricity, they pay the cartels a flat rate.

I can see you use a lot of electricity.

But, at the risk of electrocution from unsafe connections.

I mean that's got to have killed people.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So many people have died.

- This leaves local leaders and their crews somewhere in the middle.

They got paid by Kenya Power to install the lines.

Now they're removing the cartel's connections and getting threatened for it.

- You see the cartels, they organize themselves.

They come together.

- Right.

- With the pangas, knives, sharp objects.

You see, they start now beating you.

[Scott] So I had to wonder who was installing the cartel's connections.

Could they be paying the crews with the gear and expertise, who now aren't getting paid by Kenya Power?

Does the cartel pay you to keep those there?

- No, no, no, no.

[Scott] No.

- They don't pay me.

- No.

- So they just do that.

- I was being paid by Kenya Power.

- By Kenya Power.

- To remove illegal connections.

- So now you're not paid at all.

- Yeah.

[Scott] So what is Kenya Power to do?

Do they push in and pay local crews to disconnect all the cartel connections?

And if so, how will the cartels respond?

What needs to happen for the illegal electricity to go away?

- Kenya Power must come strongly to support us.

[Scott] Or does Kenya Power charge the cartels for the electricity going into the slum?

And let them worry about selling it to residents?

Or cut off electricity to the Kibera lines to cut their losses?

[David] Our losses are about like 20%.

Twenty percent of the energy cannot be accounted for.

[Scott] How will the residents cope if these struggles make electricity more expensive or more dangerous, or less available?

These are all important questions for any government or utility trying to distribute electricity to the one billion people now living in slums around the world.

The infrastructure will be the easy part.

Minimizing corruption and working with local power structures and residents in culturally effective ways to forge a lasting win-win for all involved, those are the real challenges.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪