Abstract
The purpose of this article was to examine the extent to which project planning influence implementation of rural energy access projects in underserved counties in Kenya. The unit of analysis was households, commercial centers, schools, hospitals and a sample size of 373 respondents was selected from a target population of 5,604 respondents in areas where rural electrification has been implemented in underserved counties in Kenya through stratified sampling and purposive sampling techniques. Data was collected from the respondents through questionnaires, interviews and observation. The research outcome depicted that project planning had significant influence on the implementation of energy access projects in underserved counties in Kenya. The coefficient of determination R2 was 0.042 and it depicted that project planning explained 4.2 % of variations in implementation of energy access projects in underserved counties in Kenya. The remaining 95.8% of variations in implementation of energy access projects in underserved counties remained unexplained and were explained by other variables other than project planning that were not captured in this model. The overall F statistic of F = 4.399(p = 0.05) was statistically significant at P=0.000<0.05 hence was suitable to measure project planning. This study found out that while each country has its own priorities and needs, many have invested in policy reforms and capacity building, mainstreamed energy access within development programs, and used various incentive-based instruments to catalyze finance for energy access markets.
Highlights
Project Planning is a discipline for stating how to complete a project within a certain timeframe, usually with defined stages and with designated resources
This implies policy formulation is a vital consideration when energy access projects are being implemented in rural areas in Kenya
The outcome was that the test of coefficient of determination was R2 = 0.042 and r = 0.206, an indicator that generally project planning is weakly correlated with implementation of energy access projects
Summary
Project Planning is a discipline for stating how to complete a project within a certain timeframe, usually with defined stages and with designated resources. Policy and regulatory challenges which pertains to lack of long-term sectoral vision, planning and political prioritization to make it happen, financing challenges that relates to payment risk, coupled with lack of risk mitigation tools and inadequate financing support (grants, loans, grace periods and long term interest rates) makes it difficult to secure finance for rural energy projects, market development challenges due to lack the of innovative business models, local market knowledge and resource availability to implement rural energy solutions, technical and structural challenges as a result of insufficient base load, lack of pilot demonstration projects, poor grid conditions (or complete unavailability of the grid) leads to higher costs and inadequate design solutions and information and capacity challenges caused by lack of knowledge on available technologies, lack of capacity to design, manage, and operate coupled with limited local involvement and public support (Wamukonya,2013). Different activities are involved and the need for proper project planning and management to ensure that materials and works are procured and supplied within schedule
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