Electricity producers risk a Sh100,000 fine per month if they fail to submit a 52-week plan on scheduled switch-off of their plants in advance, in a move aimed at minimising supply disruptions to consumers.
The schedule for the switch-offs of each plant linked to the national grid will be submitted to the electricity sector regulator by the end of a calendar year or not more than four months after end of a financial year for the power producer and is part of the Draft Energy (Electricity Reliability, Quality of Supply and Service) Regulations, 2025, that recently went through public participation.
Submitting the plan in advance is aimed at ensuring that plants are switched off for maintenance based on how critical the repairs and minimise supply interruptions thus protecting consumers.
An economy can potentially be thrust into a blackout if a number of plants especially the high capacity ones are switched for maintenance simultaneously, a situation that the energy regulator is keen to avoid amid a steady growth in the number of customers relying on Kenya Power and also growing demand.
Currently, power producers submit the plans to the energy regulator and Kenya Power based on a gentleman’s agreement, a scenario that looks set to change by anchoring the requirement in law.
“A generation licensee who fails to submit to the System Operator a 52-weeks-ahead outage plan per generating plant showing planned outages schedule by the December 31st of each year commits an offence and is liable to a fine of Sh100,000 per month for each of the months that the breach continues,” the regulations read in part.
Electricity generators will submit the plan on the scheduled switch-off of each of their plants to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) and Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) –the system operator.
Anchoring this requirement in law marks yet another step up by Epra to bolster electricity supply and cushion homes and businesses against blackouts or erratic supply due to multiple generation plants going off at the same time.
Kenya Power hit 10.06 million customers in June this year and the energy regulator is keen to boost reliability of the national grid at a time consumption has jumped over the years to 13.68 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) as at June last year compared to 7.244 billion kWh a decade ago.
Consumers have severally been plunged into blackouts due to animal interference or shocks on generation plants. For example in 2023, a broken jumper at two major generation plants at the Olkaria geothermal field led to a countrywide blackout.
But a majority of the blackouts have mostly been attributed to an aging electricity transmission network which has been unable to handle sudden load spikes.
Kenya is seeking to emulate developed economies like France where power producers are by law required to submit annual outage plans to help balance demand with supply. In Ghana, the law also compels electricity producers to submit these plans or risk sanctions.
There are at least 25 power generation plants currently supplying electricity to Kenya Power. These are owned by both government and independent power producers (IPPs).
