Kenya to double power imports from Ethiopia to meet demand
Business
By
Macharia Kamau
| May 22, 2026
Kenya plans to ramp up electricity imports from Ethiopia in a move aimed at reducing instances where some parts of the country have to endure outages as the national electricity grid struggles to meet demand.
Kenya Power said electricity imports from Ethiopia are set to double to 400 megawatts (MW) in December this year, from the current 200MW.
This increase will see Ethiopia’s State-owned power producer and distributor, Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), become the second-largest electricity generator feeding the Kenyan grid after the State-owned Kenya Electricity Generating (KenGen) company.
Kenya’s power production capacity has, in recent years, stagnated following a seven-year freeze on the signing of new Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) between Kenya Power and independent electricity producers.
Over the moratorium period, which came into force in May 2018 and was lifted in November 2025, no new PPAs were signed, which has meant that the power plant pipeline in the country has run dry, with the installed capacity stagnating since 2022 at about 3,340MW.
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This is despite growing consumption, with peak electricity demand growing significantly, from 2,051 MW in May 2022 to a high of 2,439.06MW in December 2025.
The mismatch in growth has resulted in some power consumers experiencing outages as power sector authorities implemented electricity rationing of sorts.
Kenya Power Chief Executive Joseph Siror said the company would increase power imports from Ethiopia to 400MW by the end of this year, which he said would help meet growing demand in the short term.
There are also plans to build an offshore power plant powered by natural gas with a capacity to generate 200MW.
“To meet the requirements in the short term, we will see an additional 200MW coming from Ethiopia by December,” he said, adding that the PPA signed between Kenya Power and Ethiopia was for the provision of 200MW over the initial three years to December 2026, which would then be increased to 400MW.
Kenya started importing electricity from Ethiopia in December 2023, initially on a test basis, where it would import 100MW, but this has increased to 200MW in 2024. According to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority, imports from Ethiopia had the third largest share of Kenya’s electricity market at 8.85 per cent over the six months to December 2025.
EEP was behind KenGen (59.9 per cent) and Lake Turkana Wind Power (10.24 per cent). There have been periods when EEP ranked second, ahead of Lake Turkana Wind Power Ltd.
He said the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum is also in the process of building a 200MW natural gas-powered plant on a floating barge.
“The other intervention the Ministry is pursuing is a floating barge, which will be a natural gas plant based offshore, and what we would just need is a transmission line into our grid,” said Siror. He conceded that “demand is rising, but the reserves are dwindling.”
Siror spoke yesterday when Kenya Power flagged off a convoy of electric vehicles that will take part in parades to popularise EVs in Kenya. The convoy will travel from Nairobi to Mombasa, and another from Nairobi to Kisumu and back. Kenya Power is increasingly looking at EVs in its bid to grow revenues.
Income from the e-mobility sector has grown by over 113 per cent in three years and cumulatively earned the company Sh382 million. “The monthly revenue from EVs charging increased from Sh873,907 in July 2023 to a peak of Sh35 million in February 2026, underscoring the accelerated adoption of EVs in the country,” said Kenya Power.
The number of EVs has risen to 35,000 currently from 1,200 in 2023.