– Kenya Power chief executive officer Benard Ngugi said the company was seeking to lower fixed charges in contracts signed with electricity-generating companies
– In the plans, the public liability company wants to cut the costs spent on generators that have been used for the thermal production of electricity
– The company had been alarmed by the reduction of power consumption among its key industrial customers opting for much cheaper energy
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Electricity distributor, Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), has announced new plans to reduce power bills for consumers after a public uproar.
Kenya Power chief executive officer Benard Ngugi said the company was seeking to lower fixed charges in contracts signed with electricity-generating companies such as KenGen and pass the benefits to its customers.
In the plans, the public liability company wants to cut the costs spent on generators that have been used for the thermal production of electricity. “It’s obvious that if the cost of electricity from generators comes down, the same will go to the economy or wananch by the regulator also reviewing the retail tariff downwards," Ngugi said as quoted by Business Daily . Ngugi noted cheap power would improve the dwindling economic fortunes in the country considering many small and large scale companies depend on electricity for day to day activities.
Once KPLC completes negotiations with electricity producers such as Gulf Power, Iberafrica, Tsavo Power, OrPower, Lake Turkana Wind and Thika Power, it would review prices downwards.
Kenya Power currently charges most domestic customers between KSh16 and KSh24 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) depending on how they consume it.
The firm had earlier said it was seeking the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority’s nod to increase unit tariff by 20 % but has now backtracked on the move.
In his defence, Ngugi said the lighting company had an outstanding huge debt that could potentially stall its operations. "We have outstanding debts that we need to pay, we also took huge loan. The much we are collecting which require us to do certain things demand quite a lot. We are required to do something very strategic," he stated. He revealed KPLC usually pays about 70% of its revenue to KenGen and was left with little funds to sustain its operations. "When you look at what we pay, we pay almost 70% of what we collect to the power […]
