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The effort to reduce carbon emissions as the arguably most prevalent cause of global warming has been a positive trend in most African countries. One of the most successful strategies towards reaching that goal is the shift from fossil fuel power generation to renewable sources of energy such as wind, hydro, geothermal and solar. As Kenya sits on the equator it enjoys an all year round insolation between 5 and 6 kW/m 2 /day which is more than double of the average insulation in Germany, a country where solar energy is widely used. Taking advantage of a green line of financial support created by the French Government, Strathmore University embarked in a project to install a 600 kW roof-top, grid connected solar PV system to cater for its electricity needs. Having as a background of the newly instituted Feed-in-Tariff regulation, the system is designed to produce more than the required self-consumption such that the extra power can be sold to the utility via a PPA (power purchase agreement) and the revenue used to pay for the electricity used by the university at night. This paper describes the whole process from the technical, regulatory, educational and financial aspect highlighting the positive and negative events along the path such that it can be useful for other private sector institutions interested in greening

The Light-up a village (LUAV) program is a rural development initiative designed to improve access to modern energy solutions in remote areas of developing countries. The initiative addresses the challenge of Pico PV market penetration by empowering rural communities to actively participate in lighting up their own villages using micro-solar systems. The LUAV business model was designed by an energy company, Barefoot Power (BFP), which began the LUAV field in 2012 in Uganda. The program incorporates local SACCOs and Community Based Organizations (CBO) as well as local governmental bodies in the identification and recruitment of participants. A LUAV program is designed to involve at least 100 households per community by providing each home with its own power generation solar system to run lighting and mobile device charging services. The participating households are given the option to either pay for the micro solar power system upfront or to pay for it in 3-12 monthly installments. For this pilot program, BFP sourced for funding from private investors to operate a revolving fund which is managed the SACCOs and CBOs who have the mandate to manage debt recovery

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