Energy poverty is lack of access to modern energy services. It refers to the situation of large numbers of people in developing countries whose well-being is negatively affected by very low consumption of energy, use of dirty or polluting fuels, and excessive time spent collecting fuel to meet basic needs.
Modern energy services are crucial to human well-being and to a country’s economic development; and yet globally over 1.3 billion people are without access to electricity and 2.6 billion people are without clean cooking facilities. More than 95% of these people are either in sub-Saharan African or developing Asia and 84% are in rural areas.
Developing countries including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are tackling energy poverty in rural areas, where more than half the villagers have no connection to the electricity grid. Power can come in different ways, from pico-power systems that can generate just 0.01kW (enough for lighting and simple two-way mobile links) to standalone home systems or local grids. The smaller systems are predominantly solar powered; the bigger ones can also use hydro, wind and biomass. by Financial Times
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Update: October 2015
Kenya's Energy Future 