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Kenya to get floating power plants to cater for blackouts and high demand
Kenya Power Managing Director Joseph Siror during the release of the company's half year financial results at Stima Plaza in Nairobi on January 31, 2025.
Kenya will get a floating barge at the Coast to generate electricity as a temporary measure to avoid rationing and blackouts, amid a rising demand and delays in onboarding new power plants.
Joseph Siror, the managing director of Kenya Power, revealed that plans are at an advanced stage to set up the plant at the Coast, adding that it was initially expected to be operational by December this year.
The plant, expected to have a generation capacity of between 200-400Megawatts (MW), is a short-term move to ensure that Kenya is not plunged into blackouts given the fast-rising demand and the lengthy period it takes to build conventional power plants.
Kenya recorded six new peak demands last year, with the latest being 2,439.06MW on December 4, 2025. The surge in demand has forced Kenya to deepen reliance on Ethiopia and Uganda to avoid countrywide blackouts.
Parliament recently allowed Kenya Power to resume talks with power producers. But bureaucracy and the lengthy period it takes to build a power plant has heightened the need for a short-term solution.
“The ministry is currently engaging on the floating barge, which will be a gas plant based on the sea, and what we will be required to do is to connect a transmission line to our grid,” Dr Siror said.
“The floating barge will help to meet the imminent shortfall we might encounter ahead as we await new plants...the initial plan was to have it come on board by December.”
Kenya’s spinning reserves (extra unused electricity capacity) are significantly below the globally recommended range of seven-15 percent, exposing the country to the danger of blackouts in case of a sudden surge in demand.
A floating barge refers to a power plant located on a special ship and supplies critically needed electricity independently of local resources or infrastructure. These plants use natural gas or diesel to generate electricity.
Conventional power plants take longer to construct, with a 35MW geothermal power plant taking at least 36 months.
Kenya urgently needs to step up local power generation to avoid the increased dependence on Ethiopia and Uganda. Reliance on the two countries places Kenya at a big risk of outages in case of a major breakdown of the hydro plants.
Ethiopia accounted for 9.3 percent (1,405.87Gigawatt-hours) of the 15,067.69GWh that Kenya Power bought last year while a further 277.79GWh or one percent was imported from Uganda.
The floating barge at the Coast will be the first in Kenya. Details such as the model of acquiring it and the total costs remain undisclosed. Kenya Power is currently locked in negotiations with power producers keen to construct power plants in the country.
The utility had been barred from signing new plants since 2018, an embargo that has seen local generation trail demand.
