KenGen to drop cost of elecricity from next year
KenGen Managing Director Albert Mugo before the Public Investments Committee on October 13, 2015, at Parliament Buildings. Electricity generating company KenGen has assured Kenyans that the cost of electricity will drop. PHOTO|NMG
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This is after the firm injects an extra 511 megawatts of geothermal power into the national grid in the coming year.
Nairobi. Electricity generating company KenGen has assured Kenyans that the cost of electricity will drop further in the coming months.
This is after the firm injects an extra 511 megawatts of geothermal power into the national grid in the coming year.
KenGen Chairman Joshua Choge said extra megawatts will lift Kenya’s global ranking from the eighth largest producer of geothermal energy to the top five leading countries.
Mr Choge said the country’s installed steam power capacity now stands at 579MW, ahead of giant economies such as Japan, Russia and China.
He spoke on Saturday during the handing over of three fully equipped classrooms at Oloirowua Primary School and Olosingate livestock water pan in Suswa, in Narok East sub-county.
Mr Choge said electricity prices are expected to drop by another 6 per cent for homes that consume about 50 kilowatt hours (kWh) this month, having fallen by 12 per cent earlier.
The KenGen chairman, who was accompanied by finance director John Mudanya and Olkaria geothermal development director Abel Rotich, said Kenya has the potential to produce about 10,000 megawatts of geothermal power from the Rift Valley basin. He said the company’s Sh118.7 billion Olkaria project is billed as Africa’s largest steam development, consisting of four power plants each generating 70MW.
The continued injection of geothermal power had pushed the fuel cost component in electricity bills to an all-time low of Sh2.51 per kWh in February, from a high of Sh7.22 per unit in August last year. (NMG)
