Lack of electricity locks people in poverty – low-carbon energy is the key | Mafalda Duarte

Funding geothermal and solar energy projects can help to provide clean, reliable, renewable power to people, boosting green growth and reducing poverty

Steam billows from an energy plant in a stretch of Kenya's Great Rift Valley, about 180km north of the capital, Nairobi. But the white clouds rising from the tidy grid of pipes aren't a sign of polluting greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. They are a signal that the country of more than 44 million, where some 65% of the population does not have access to electricity, is one giant step closer to delivering clean, reliable, renewable power to its people.

The first phase of the $746m Menengai geothermal development project is well under way, with already proven steam resources capable of generating 130 megawatts of electricity and working toward commissioning the first power plants in 2016.