Electricity generated from green sources declined in the third quarter of last year, while production from hydropower sources increased significantly, data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows.
- •Thermal electricity generation declined by 10.2 per cent while electricity from hydro increased by 21 per cent to 950.1 million KWh.
- •Electricity generated from geothermal, wind and solar declined by 7.8 per cent, 8.2 per cent, and 13.4 per cent respectively.
- •Overall, total electricity generation declined by 1.4 per cent, from 3,287.6 million kilowatt hours (KWh) in the third quarter of 2023 to 3,240.6 million KWh in the similar period of 2024.
The quarter under review registered mixed performance of key macroeconomic indicators. Inflation eased to an average of 4.08 per cent in the third quarter of 2024 from 6.93 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2023 mainly driven by lower prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Manufacturing
The report says that the country’s manufacturing sector recorded a real GDP growth of 2.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2024, slightly lower than the 2.8 per cent growth recorded during the same period in 2023.
The manufacturing sector’s growth was largely driven by the food subsector, particularly sugar production. Sugar production rose from 77,686.0 metric tonnes in the third quarter of 2023 to 231,052.6 metric tonnes in the period under review. Production of soft drinks expanded by 27.5 per cent, to 164,797.3 thousand litres in the quarter under review from 129,204.0 thousand litres in the same period of 2023.
Similarly, milk deliveries to processors grew by 6.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2024.
The growth of the sector was constrained by manufacture of galvanised sheet, cement production and assembly of motor vehicles.
Production of galvanised sheets fell by 4.2 per cent, from 71,722.8 metric tonnes in quarter three of 2023 to 68,719.5 metric tonnes in quarter three of 2024. Cement production decreased by 12.1 per cent from 2,551.0 thousand tonnes in the third quarter of 2023 to 2,242.4 thousand tonnes in the same period of 2024.
Similarly, assembly of motor vehicles saw a marginal decline (0.4%) to 3,262 units in quarter three of 2024 from 3,275 units in the corresponding quarter of 2023.