Kenya Power is seeking to onboard electricity plants with a combined production capacity of 1,112 megawatts (MW), with talks with 65 firms set to speed up after Parliament lifted a freeze on new power purchase agreements.
A brief from the Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum Opiyo Wandayi shows that the negotiations with 54 of the power producers are at various stages. Some are set for further talks this month.
Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi.
Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
Parliament lifted a seven-year moratorium on new power purchase agreements (PPAs) last week, paving the way for resumption of talks with concerns that the country is tinkering on a crisis amid power rationing and increased reliance on imports from Ethiopia and Uganda.
A majority of the 54 power plants are for hydropower, while the rest deal in wind and solar. The biggest of the proposed projects are two wind power plants, each with a capacity of 100MW.
“KPLC [Kenya Power]commenced engagement on PPAs with 65 generation projects with a total of 1,112MW, with the majority being small hydropower,” the brief reads in part.
“Developer shared a marked-up draft PPA and updated the financial model. However, markup showed the developer disagreed with most of KPLC’s position. Requested the developer to share the matrix and final positions on issues before team resumes PPA drafting. Developer scheduled for a meeting within November 2025,” Kenya Power says on one of the plants.
The negotiations include four other wind plants each with a capacity of 50MW. These are owned by Chania Green, Sub-Sahara W, Prunus Energy Systems and Aperture Green.
One of the 100MW wind plants is owned by Hewani Energy whose joint owners are Seriti Green of South Africa and Eurus Energy of Japan. This plant is to be built in Meru County. The other one is owned by Kipeto Energy, a power producer which already has another running PPA with Kenya Power.
Most of the negotiations were suspended after MPs extended the freeze on new PPAs as the lawmakers sought more time to probe the existing PPAs blamed for steep prices of electricity.
The moratorium has left Kenya in a scenario where a surging demand has outstripped local generation, forcing Kenya Power to increasingly lean on Ethiopia and Uganda to shore up supplies.
Electricity imports have significantly grown over the last four years with their share in the national grid more than doubling to 10.6 percent or 1.53 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the year to June 2025, up from 4.87 percent a year earlier and one percent in 2021.
Increased importation of electricity from Ethiopia and Uganda has helped to avert power rationing (from 5 pm to 10 pm) on a larger scale.
Power rationing is the controlled and temporary cutting of electricity supply to consumers to avert overloads on the grid when demand exceeds the available generation capacity.
Kenya Power is now expected to speed up talks with power producers following the lifting of the moratorium.
A Kenya Power technician fixes a transmission line.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Expeditious talks are critical in helping to avert the power generation crisis by ensuring no further delays to efforts of onboarding new power plants. It takes at least one and a half years to construct a plant.
The disclosures further show that Kenya Power held a number of meetings with the power producers last month. Most of the firms are pushing for financial closures to pave the way for the start of the projects.
