Kenya Energy staff perform restore works alongside Haile Selassie Highway, Mombasa. FILE PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NMG

Kenya Energy is taking greater than eight hours on common to attach its greater than 9 million prospects again to the grid after a blackout, exposing itself to the chance of renewed compensation claims by companies for monetary losses, a brand new report by the sector regulator has proven.

Power and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) knowledge exhibits that November 2022 was the worst in practically two years after outages lasted 10.63 hours on common, prompting households and factories to hunt costlier options.

The unreliability, which explains the rising shift by massive energy customers to personal era and photo voltaic, shot up from a mean of six hours in July to peak at 10.63 hours in November final 12 months, exposing the chance of its ageing infrastructure on the financial system.

“Electrical energy provide reliability was low in November with a system common interruption period of 10.63 hours. That is attributed to partial and nationwide blackouts skilled throughout the month,” Epra says within the report.

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The utility early this month plunged the nation into its fifth nationwide blackout previously 4 years, which it blamed on transmission strains manned by the Kenya Electrical energy Transmission Firm.

The extended blackouts at a time when Kenya is coping with its worst drought in 4 a long time have turned the give attention to Kenya Energy’s deteriorating provide strains.

It additionally coincides with extra frequent nationwide blackouts because the sector regulator requires an pressing revamp of transmission strains to guard customers from lengthy dead nights.

There was a rising push from the companies that incur monetary losses as a result of energy outages to be compensated by Kenya Energy.

However the laws to compel the ability utility to compensate customers for monetary losses, tools injury, bodily accidents and loss of life as a result of energy outages are but to be operationalised.

Kenya Energy provides compensation for accidents and broken kits however doesn’t compensate home and enterprise prospects for monetary loss ensuing from being left with out electrical energy.

The final time blackouts lasted near the ten.63-hour peak in November 2022 was in January final 12 months and July 2021 when outages averaged 10.5 hours monthly.

The unreliability of the nationwide grid has lately prompted a shift to photo voltaic and biomass inside electrical energy era, particularly by huge customers and rich households.

The vitality regulator measures the outages on the nationwide grid utilizing the System Common Interruption Period Index (SAIDI) monthly.

SAIDI refers back to the common outage period for every buyer on the grid and is calculated by summing up all buyer interruptions after which dividing by the full variety of prospects.

Kenya was on March 4, 2023, plunged right into a nationwide blackout, simply six months after an identical outage on November 24 final 12 months that hit onerous Nairobi, Coast and Mount Kenya areas.

The nationwide outage was attributed to a failure of 200 MVA and 200 MVA transformers on the Isinya substation whereas the blackout that hit Nairobi, Coast and Mount Kenya was blamed on an identical drawback on a 105 MVA transformer at Olkaria 1.

Transformer failures are attributed to put on and tear, outdated age, energy overloads and pure forces comparable to lightning strikes.

In January final 12 months, three main transmission failures that occurred inside hours of one another plunged Kenya into its worst nationwide energy blackout amid rising sabotage fears.

Blackout durations then eased to a mean of 8.5 hours in December final 12 months at the same time as considerations mount on the reliability of the Kenya Energy provide as a result of growing prospects on the community.

Kenya Energy first raised the alarm on the shift to photo voltaic by huge customers who account for barely greater than half of its gross sales revenues in 2020.

Large companies comparable to East Africa Breweries Restricted, Africa Logistics Properties (ALP), Mombasa Worldwide Airport, and the Worldwide Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) have all arrange inside energy era crops.

Rich households are additionally more and more putting in photo voltaic panels to energy their properties, additional consuming into Kenya Energy’s gross sales. Peak demand for electrical energy additionally hit a contemporary excessive in what’s going to compound Kenya Energy’s woes.

Learn: Kenya Energy kicks off seek for a brand new MD

Electrical energy demand peaked at a brand new excessive of two,149 megawatts (MW) on December 14 final 12 months, highlighting the necessity to increase era and reliability.

Kenya Energy, which has been battling thinning money flows, is now relying on increased electrical energy tariffs from subsequent month to offer cash for upgrading the transmission strains and boosting the standard of energy.

The utility submitted proposed increased tariffs that if adopted will take impact from April 1.

It mentioned the brand new tariffs are key to offering billions of shillings wanted to develop the grid and improve the reliability of the ability provide.

Kenya Energy disclosed that the brand new tariffs if accepted, will increase not less than Sh31.4 billion that will likely be shared between the utility and different State companies within the vitality sector.

However the increased tariffs, coupled with excessive unreliability ranges, are more likely to gasoline the shift by customers to own-power era moreover making Kenya’s vitality prices much less aggressive in comparison with Ethiopia, South Africa and Egypt.

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