Nairobi, Sept. 2 -- An estimated five million households will be connected to electricity under a Sh114 billion ($880 million) World Bank-backed project that mainly seeks to light up rural Kenya.

The project, dubbed Accelerating Sustainable and Clean Energy Transformation (ASCENT-Kenya), is funded by the World Bank and other financiers and marks Kenya's latest efforts to achieve universal electricity coverage by 2030.

ASCENT-Kenya will also see 7,500 public education institutions and 2,500 public health facilities linked to electricity, which will significantly boost their service delivery.

Kenya's electricity coverage stood at 74 percent in 2024, and disclosures from the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum show that 13 million, mostly in...