Kenya’s Nuclear Power & Energy Agency (NuPEA) has announced a shift to a “deep, village-level grassroots sensitisation” strategy in Siaya County following intense community resistance to NPP plans. This decision follows a major disruption where hundreds of residents from Sakwa village in Bondo sub-county stormed a government stakeholder meeting to protest the proposed facility.
Residents marched with placards along the shores of Lake Victoria, raising alarms over radioactive contamination, ancestral land displacement, and geological instability. The KES500bn ($3.8bn) 1,000 MWe project was initially considered for Uyombo village in Kilifi County but following heavy local resistance there, the government shifted focus to Siaya, evaluating five potential sites near water sources.
NuPEA CEO Justus Wabuyabo acknowledged that public participation is a constitutional mandate, prompting the agency to move away from high-level institutional planning toward direct village engagements to address safety and livelihood anxieties. With the state targeting a 2027 construction commencement, the immediate next phase involves high-level leadership deliberations alongside extensive door-to-door village forums to establish local consent
The background to Kenya’s nuclear energy programme is rooted in Kenya Vision 2030, a national development blueprint launched in 2008 to industrialise the country. Realising that double-digit economic growth would drastically overwhelm the existing electricity grid, the government identified nuclear energy as a critical, high-capacity baseline power source.
Kenya’s nuclear path progressed through a structured legal and institutional transition. In 2010, the National Economic & Social Council (NESC) formalised nuclear energy as a national priority. The Ministry of Energy established the Nuclear Electricity Project Committee (NEPC) to spearhead the initial agenda. In 2012, NEPC became the Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board (KNEB) and began conducting formal pre-feasibility studies. The 2019 Energy Act legally dissolved KNEB replacing it with NuPEA, which had a broader mandate to oversee nuclear research, capacity building, and policy enforcement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducted its initial Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission in Kenya in 2015 and a follow-up mission confirmed that Kenya had successfully graduated to “Phase 2” of the IAEA’s Milestones Approach, paving the way for commercial construction bids. However, finding a site for the first commercial plant has faced fierce local environmental and social pushback.
Kenya is pursuing a dual-technology approach by integrating small modular reactors (SMRs) alongside a dedicated scientific research reactor, while evaluating large-scale pressurised water reactors (PWRs) for its long-term baseline needs. NuPEA has shifted its primary commercial focus heavily toward SMRs to match Kenya’s specific financial limitations and regional grid infrastructure. Kenya plans to bundle multi-module SMR units to achieve its initial 1,000 MWe target.
NuPEA is evaluating proposals from major global nuclear firms, notably receiving official bids and information packets from Rosatom (Russia), PSECC Ltd/Rolls-Royce (UK) (proposing two 470MW SMR units), alongside options from South Korea, China, and the US.
While SMRs dominate immediate planning, Kenya’s long-term master plan targeting 20,000 MWe by 2040 leaves the door open for conventional Gen-III+ large reactors. Large reactors (700 MWe to 1,700 MWe) are reserved for secondary phases because Kenya’s current national grid capacity (3,100-3,800 MWe) cannot safely absorb a sudden trip or shutdown of a massive single reactor.
Separately, Kenya is launching a standalone Research Reactor programme slated for a 2027 construction start. Land has been set aside at the Konza Technopolis technology hub, 64 km south of Nairobi. It will serve as the primary hub for the production of medical radioisotopes (for cancer therapies), agricultural seed mutation research, and hands-on training for Kenyan nuclear scientists.
The Kenya Nuclear Research Reactor (KNRR) project is being spearheaded by NuPEA, with South Korea as the primary technical partner for its development. Rather than hiring a single independent contractor, Kenya is building the facility through a strategic bilateral partnership framework. In September 2025, NuPEA signed a formal memorandum of understanding with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), which has completed the comprehensive feasibility study for the project and is providing the core reactor design, technical engineering blueprints, and workforce training. The project is estimated to cost around KES11bn for the initial phase. NuPEA is drawing these allocations directly from the Kenyan National Treasury in multi-year tranches. The IAEA oversees the rollout and an expert inspection mission formally cleared Kenya’s regulatory and structural readiness, paving the way for the 2026–2027 ground-breaking phase.
Earlier in May, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi attended the inaugural Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi where he positioned nuclear energy as a financial and development imperative, emphasising that SMRs are a game-changer for Africa. On the sidelines of the summit, Grossi signed a critical agreement with Kenya’s Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Opiyo Wandayi, to bolster peaceful uses of nuclear technology and to increase IAEA support for Kenya as it moves forward with its nuclear power programme.
