Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telecommunications operator, consumed 274,531 megawatt-hours of electrical energy within the monetary 12 months ended March 2026, a 5.7% improve from the earlier 12 months.
Its emissions from electrical energy purchases, gasoline burned in mills and autos, and refrigerant gases utilized in cooling techniques rose by 9.1% to 56,354 tonnes of carbon dioxide equal.
The figures, documented in Safaricom’s 2026 Sustainability Report, recommend that the corporate’s 2030 know-how ambitions have gotten dearer. Its increasing community, knowledge centres, and digital providers demand extra power, however cleaner sources nonetheless cowl solely a small share of its general supply.
The improve got here as Safaricom expanded its renewable vitality programme. By March 2026, it had put in photo voltaic power at 2,028 community websites, up from 1,432 a 12 months earlier. It additionally upgraded 800 websites with extra environment friendly power techniques. Yet photo voltaic equipped solely 5% of the vitality used throughout its community. The nationwide grid accounted for 78%, whereas diesel mills equipped the remaining 17%.
“Grid availability and reliability influence our ability to reduce diesel consumption, while physical constraints at some sites can limit the potential for on-site solar generation,” Safaricom mentioned within the report.
Investment is outpacing the shift in Safaricom’s vitality combine. The firm is including photo voltaic gear, but its general power demand continues to climb. In its report, Safaricom famous that “network expansion continues to influence our overall energy requirements.”
Managing that demand will get tougher as Safaricom strikes past cellular connectivity into knowledge centres, cloud providers and different digital merchandise. Each wants computing gear, cooling and a gentle electrical energy supply. Intermittent power just isn’t an choice with out backup techniques, and people add their very own prices.
Power will tackle a bigger share of Safaricom’s prices to run the community, knowledge centres, and cloud providers in its next phase of growth. Meeting its local weather targets is the lesser of the 2 pressures.
For all its photo voltaic ambitions, Safaricom nonetheless runs a lot of its community on diesel. The firm burned 10.08 million litres of gasoline in FY26, down from 10.47 million litres a 12 months earlier, and diesel accounted for nearly 80% of emissions from its direct operations, which additionally embrace refrigerant gases. Generators maintain community websites operating when grid power fails or turns into unreliable.
The telco can not merely abandon them, contemplating its community should stay accessible to prospects, together with when the nationwide grid is down. Reducing diesel use will require reliable options at hundreds of web sites, not simply extra photo voltaic panels.
Safaricom can also be combining photo voltaic installations with lithium-ion batteries, extra environment friendly power techniques, further grid connections and distant monitoring. It says clever shutdown know-how can scale back radio community vitality consumption by as much as 8%. These measures can lower generator use, however their attain will depend on the situations at every web site. Some areas have restricted house for photo voltaic gear, whereas an unreliable grid supply makes it tougher to depend on nationwide grid electrical energy.
There is a monetary incentive to make the change. Solar installations generated month-to-month vitality value financial savings of about KES 16.42 million ($127,000) in FY26. Safaricom estimates that changing diesel with cleaner vitality might save greater than KES 500 million ($3.9 million) by 2030. The firm’s report says its vitality technique “balances three priorities: power stability, energy cost efficiency and sustainability.” The order displays the sensible problem that Safaricom should maintain its community operating whereas decreasing the price and emissions of doing so.
The firm has additionally raised cash for eligible inexperienced tasks. Its KES 20 billion ($155 million) inexperienced bond, issued underneath a KES 40 billion ($310 million) home medium-term be aware programme, was oversubscribed by 175.7%. The proceeds can help renewable vitality and extra energy-efficient community infrastructure. But financing doesn’t take away the technical constraints.
Safaricom explored power buy agreements with impartial power producers to supply its power-intensive knowledge centres. It had not concluded by the top of FY26. It additionally examined a hydrogen gasoline cell at one web site, however mentioned that wider deployment confronted constraints as a consequence of gasoline and capital prices. Neither choice has but supplied a transparent path to decreasing the corporate’s dependence on grid electrical energy and diesel at scale.
An additional complication is how Safaricom reviews its progress. Its emissions per KES million in income fell from 0.144 to 0.14 tonnes in FY26. That suggests the corporate generated extra income for every unit of emissions. But its complete emissions from electrical energy purchases and direct operations nonetheless rose. Better emissions depth doesn’t imply the enterprise is producing fewer emissions general.
The decline in its wider reported carbon footprint additionally wants context. Emissions from its supply chain and different oblique sources fell to 136,943 tonnes from 226,047 tonnes. Safaricom attributed a part of the discount to adjustments in reporting methodology and knowledge availability. The fall, subsequently, can’t be learn as proof that the corporate’s general environmental influence improved by the identical margin.
Safaricom has a net-zero emissions goal for 2050, and assembly it will grow to be tougher if enlargement continues to drive up electrical energy demand and backup power use. Solar-powered websites present progress, however a clearer indicator will be the share of Safaricom’s vitality equipped by cleaner sources because the enterprise grows.
Safaricom needs to promote greater than connectivity, and its ambitions in knowledge centres, computing capability, and digital providers will require a dependable power supply. The firm now has to indicate it may possibly construct that infrastructure with out letting vitality prices and emissions maintain rising.
