Kenya Power #ticker:KPLC is on the spot for prioritising expensive thermal power over the cheaper options such as geothermal and hydro, effectively setting up consumers for higher electricity prices.
Data by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) shows that the power distributor last month took the highest proportion of the expensive thermal power in more than a year while reserving the lowest slot for the cheaper geothermal power.
As a result, consumers paid a higher fuel cost charge — which is influenced by the share of electricity from diesel generators — of Sh2.6 per kilowatt hour (kWh), up from the Sh2.4 since May 2020.
Some insiders at the power utility attributed the record uptake of expensive thermal power partly to a reduced generation of geothermal power after two of the plants run by the KenGen were stopped for maintenance.
KenGen, however, said it compensated the lack of geothermal power with enhanced production of hydropower, which is even cheaper.
KenGen further pointed out that even the geothermal units it had supplied Kenya Power was not all taken up, raising questions about Kenya Power’s decision to give priority to the more expensive thermal in September.
“Although KenGen’s geothermal power output marginally dropped in September due to maintenance, this was compensated by increased dispatch from hydro. In total KenGen’s available geothermal capacity for the month was 499.7 MW, against 410.3 MW taken up by the off-taker. This means we had an additional 89.4 MW that was not taken up,” KenGen managing director Rebecca Miano told the Business Daily. Kenya Power did not respond to Business Daily queries on what may have influenced its decision to take up more units of the more expensive thermal power yet its dispatch policy demands that it gives priority to cheaper energy sources.
The Energy Control Centre, which manages the uptake of energy from the various sources for distribution on the national grid, is manned by Kenya Power staff.
A Kenya Power engineer with knowledge of how the dispatch centre works said the load of thermal may only be increased in rare cases where there is need to “stabilise the system” due to hitches in the transmission of energy from other sources.
“I don’t know of any transmission constraints in the system of late so it will be interesting to know how this happened. We have heard of such complaints in the past where people feel some of the vendors of thermal energy are behind […]
