Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has cut its dividend payout by 16.7 percent with the firm instead investing more cash in its plant and equipment to bolster electricity generation to meet rising demand.
Company disclosures show that shareholders will get Sh0.75 per share for the year ended June 2026 amounting to Sh4.94 billion, which will be a drop from the Sh0.90 paid (Sh5.94 billion) for the previous year.
The dividend cut comes at a time KenGen’s net profit marginally fell to Sh10.35 billion from Sh10.48 billion a year ago as the firm tapped its cash-generating investment assets to beef up its electricity generation infrastructure.
Purchases of property, plant and equipment increased by Sh1.94 billion to Sh15.5 billion in the year under review, funded by liquidation of part of its assets including fixed bank deposits. The move reduced the income from its financial assets to Sh2.86 billion from Sh4.11 billion.
“Profit after tax remained broadly stable at Sh10.35 billion compared with Sh10.48 billion in 2025, a marginal shift of 1.2 percent,” KenGen said in a statement.
“This was mainly attributable to a reduction in finance income from Sh4.1 billion to Sh2.9 billion following strategic deployment of cash resources into capital investments intended to expand and strengthen Kenya’s electricity-generation infrastructure.”
KenGen last year started rehabilitation of its Olkaria 1 plant to increase its generation to 63Megawatts (MW) from 45MW. Additionally, the firm is set to expand its hydro power generation and also its maiden solar power production.
“By expanding renewable capacity and strengthening system resilience, we are helping protect consumers from the volatility associated with fossil-fuel generation while creating the energy foundation for Kenya’s industrial transformation,” Peter Njenga, the CEO of KenGen said on Monday.
The drop-in net-profit is KenGen’s first in five years with the last one being in the year to June 2021 when it plunged to Sh1.83 billion from Sh18.38 billion the previous year.
KenGen says that the Sh0.75 per share dividend will be paid on January 21, 2027 to shareholders who will be on the firm's register by October 29, 2026.
KenGen, the single biggest supplier of electricity to Kenya Power disclosed it sold 8,975Gigawatt-hours (GWh) to the national grid in the review period, a rise from the 8,482GWh sold the previous year, helping drive revenues to Sh59.7 billion from Sh56.1 billion.
A fast-rising consumption of electricity has prompted KenGen to start expanding its power generation capacity in geothermal and hydro sources in addition to its maiden solar power production.
The highest amount of power needed in 24-hours, technically referred to peak demand, hit a new high of 2,549MW on July 15, 2026 highlighting the surge in consumption that has now triggered KenGen to unveil expansion of its generation plants.
Besides expansion of the Olkaria 1 plant, KenGen is also set to increase the capacity of the Gogo Hydropower plant to 8.6MW from 2MW, build a 42.5MW solar plant in the Seven Forks besides a 58.42MW leasing of geothermal wellheads. KenGen is the single-biggest provider of electricity to Kenya Power, with the firm saying it accounted for 57.2 percent of the total electricity supplied to Kenya Power in the year ended June 2026.
More than 90 percent of KenGen’s electricity are from geothermal, hydro and wind sources with the company set to deepen this through the planned expansion of some of the plants and the maiden solar power plant.
