Power consumption drops among households

A Kenya Power technician at work. The company says the drop in electricity consumption by households is normal. [File, Standard]

Electricity consumption among domestic customers has declined despite the rise in total number of households connected to the grid.

Kenya Power said the decline was due to reclassification of users that resulted in large domestic power users being moved to the commercial category and a slow uptake of power by new domestic customers.

Many of these are households connected to power in the recent past under the last mile programme.

The company also attributed the drop to a sluggish economy in 2018.

Power users under the domestic band—over 6.7 million clients—used 1,117 gigawatts (GWh) hours over the six months to December 2018 compared to 1,166GWh over a similar period in 2017.

“We carried out a campaign last year to identify customers classified under ordinary domestic customers who were meant to be in the Small Commercial tariff band. Most of the reclassified customers totaling over 40,000 are SMEs operating in residential premises. Subsequently, revenue growth under this customer segment grew by about 25 per cent,” said the company in a statement.

“Revenue reduced in the domestic customer segment but increased under small commercial customer category.” The about 4,000 commercial and industrial consumers accounted for the lion share of power consumed at 2,197GWh.

The consumption by this segment was about double that of domestic consumers.

Small and commercial customers segment, which received the 40,000 new users following the reclassification, consumed 757GWh.

The total number of Kenya Power customers now stands at 6.76 million.

The company said the low power consumption among new customers is a normal lag and that demand will grow as the customers come to realise the benefits of being connected to the grid.

It also hopes that the expansion of the lifeline tariff to offer households consuming below 100 units of power per month a subsidised cost of Sh12 per unit will spur power consumption.

TVs and fridges

“Slow uptake of power by newly connected domestic customers is due to normal lag in demand. They will need time to acquire electric equipment such as TVs and fridges,” said the firm.

“The decline is also attributed to sluggish growth of the economy last year leading to marginal growth in power consumption.” In the financial year to June 2018, Kenya Power said it connected 578,808 new customers to the grid, growing its customer base by 9.4 per cent to 6.76 million.