Exactly — and that’s what makes it so striking.
Kenya’s retail electricity (~ $0.22 USD/kWh) is indeed roughly an order of magnitude higher than Egypt’s (~ $0.02 USD/kWh). But the gap isn’t because Egypt’s generation is magically cheaper — it’s the result of structural, political, and monetary asymmetries. Let’s unpack that.
Egypt still heavily subsidizes electricity. The government controls generation and retail prices, and it shoulders losses through state budgets. Even after recent “reforms,” Egyptian consumers pay far less than cost-recovery levels.
Kenya, by contrast, liberalized generation (IPP model) and shifted many costs — especially fuel, forex adjustments, and VAT — directly onto the retail bill. The Kenyan shilling’s depreciation amplifies this, since fuel and infrastructure contracts are often denominated in USD.
So Egyptian consumers are shielded from the true cost; Kenyan consumers are exposed to it.
Egypt’s pound (EGP) collapsed in 2024–25 — from roughly 30 EGP/USD to over 50 EGP/USD. That means when you convert their local tariffs (like EGP 1 / kWh) into USD, it looks absurdly cheap — but Egyptians don’t earn in USD. Measured in local purchasing power, electricity in Egypt isn’t ten times cheaper for Egyptians; the “order of magnitude” gap is largely an artifact of exchange-rate collapse.
Kenya: mostly renewables (hydro + geothermal + wind), but with expensive capital costs and limited economies of scale. Egypt: massive gas-fired generation, especially Siemens’ 14 GW megaplants, with fuel subsidized by domestic gas reserves.
So Egypt benefits from fossil-fuel abundance and scale; Kenya pays for capital intensity and imported components.
Egypt’s grid serves ~ 110 million people with centralized high-capacity plants. Kenya’s grid covers ~ 50 million, with sparser infrastructure and higher per-unit transmission/distribution cost.
It’s the difference between a metropolis buying in bulk and a small town running boutique renewables.
So yes — numerically, it’s an order of magnitude. But economically, it’s the difference between:
If you compare cost per kWh as a share of median income, the gap narrows dramatically — Kenya still pays more in relative terms, but not by a factor of 10.
Would you like me to quantify that “cost burden” — say, what share of monthly income a typical 200 kWh household bill represents in each country? It’s a cleaner comparison than just the raw USD rate.