Challenges Facing Household Electrical Energy Consumption and Conservation in Rural Kenya: A Case Study of Athwana Ward, Meru County

Abstract Rural households in Kenya face significant challenges in electrical energy consumption and conservation, which adversely affect affordability, sustainability, and overall energy management. This study investigates these challenges in Athwana Ward, by integrating socioeconomic, behavioral, and infrastructural factors through a mixed-method embedded design involving surveys, questionnaires, observations and interviews with 50 households. Advanced statistical analyses including correlation, regression and ANOVA were employed to unravel the relationships between household characteristics, energy usage patterns and cost implications. The study uniquely identifies that socioeconomic variables such as income, education, age, and household size moderately correlate with energy consumption and costs, while infrastructural awareness of programmable logic controllers (PLC) reveals a weak positive correlation (r = 0.21), underscoring the insufficiency of awareness without effective technological adoption. A strong positive correlation (Multiple R = 0.97) between household challenges and consumption was indicated, with regression results (”F=6.87 × ” 〖”10” 〗^”-17” ”