Kenya Power on the spot for neglecting off-grid stations

A new report has revealed major neglect of off-grid power stations operated by Kenya Power in areas that are not connected to the national electricity grid, exposing businesses and households to major power disruptions.

Kenya Power customers, in turn, have to incur high operating costs in finding alternatives to keep the lights on or forego opportunities due to a lack of electricity.  

The report by the Auditor General Nancy Gathungu shows that dozens of diesel generators powering the off-grid power stations are not in operation, while mini-solar and wind plants, which are supposed to cut reliance on diesel generators and cut fuel costs while greening up the environment, are not functional due to a lack of periodic maintenance. 

The result has been prolonged blackouts across many regions powered by off-grid power stations. In one instance in Turkana County, the Auditor General reported an outage that lasted 25 days in July last year. 

Kenya Power operates off-grid power stations in parts of the country that are not connected to the grid, mostly in Northern Kenya. 

According to the Auditor General, Kenya Power operated 57 off-grid stations in the regions not connected to the national grid in the year to June 2025.

The report further notes that 30 stations were powered by diesel generators, while 27 utilised solar technology. 

In reviewing the off-grid stations, the Office of the Auditor General found what it termed as several inefficiencies and anomalies, including generators that had broken down due to a lack of maintenance, exposing the residents to major outages.

“Twenty-five diesel generators deployed to the stations, with a combined capacity of 12,454 kilowatts (kW), were not in operation due to breakdown and lack of maintenance, which contributed to the reduction of capacity required to supply customers in these areas,” said the Auditor General in a report for the financial year to June this year.

“Physical visit in August 2025 to Habaswein and Eldas stations revealed solar and wind generation plants with an installed capacity of 1,170kW, installed with the intention of reducing operational costs of diesel-powered stations. However, the plants were non-functional due to a lack of periodic maintenance.”

“Instances of diesel generator breakdowns resulted in extended outages in the regions. For instance, at the Lokitaung off-grid station in Turkana County, a breakdown lasting 25 days was experienced in July 2024. The prolonged outages were attributed to delays in procuring spare parts for repairs.”

This is even as metrics used to measure the reliability of power supply showed an improvement across the entire Kenya Power system.

The firm in its annual report said there was an improvement in reliability indices for the distribution network, with the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) – which measures the average duration of an outage –  showing an improvement from 120.6 hours in the year to June 2024 to 113 hours over a similar period in 2025.

The System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) – which shows the average number of times a customer experiences outages in a year – reduced to 44.07 times in 2025, an improvement from 47.5 times in the 2023/24 financial year.

The audit report, however, shows instances where the outages experienced by customers served by the off-grid stations may not have been captured in Kenya Power’s systems.

“Power outages in areas served by the off-grid stations were not logged in the Incident Management System (IMS), making it difficult for management to monitor and track supply reliability in these regions,” said the audit report. “An internal investigation on six off-grid stations revealed a low efficiency of diesel generators, evidenced by disproportionate fuel consumption relative to electricity output. The report further noted that the inefficiencies were due to ageing equipment, inadequate maintenance and substandard operational practices.” 

Further investigations on fuel usage by the Auditor General revealed inconsistencies in how monitoring of how fuel was used by the diesel electricity generators.  

“Instances of overlapping dates were detected which compromised the integrity of fuel tracking and inventory management, raising doubts about the accuracy of recorded consumption and stock balances. In addition, the investigation identified stations which either lacked a flow metre or had faulty metres for measuring generator fuel usage,” said the audit report.

“Perosnell at the stations relied on manual dip measurements by station operators which compromised the verifiability and reliability of fuel consumption data.”