Power outage hits most parts of Kenya, restoration underway
On Saturday evening, Kenyans were frustrated after the country was plunged into darkness following a widespread power outage.
Kenya Power said that the partial outage in most parts of Kenya was hit by a grid disturbance and businesses had to resort to using generators as the sole electricity distributor worked to restore the supply.
“Good evening. There is grid disturbance affecting the main transmission line. Restoration is underway by NCC. Inconvenience regrettable. Regards,” a message sent to customers read.
The outage was reported around 19:45 pm.
In a statement, Kenya Power said, “We have lost power supply to parts of the country. Our engineers are working to restore supply to the affected areas. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused. An update on the restoration progress and the cause of the power outage will be issued later,” the statement read.
The latest outage comes two months after the country experienced one of its worst blackouts that lasted for almost two days which saw the shutdown of the country’s main international airport and led to a rare public apology by Kipchumba Murkomen the Cabinet Secretary for Roads, Transport and Public Works.
“I am really sorry for what has happened at JKIA with the blackout. There is no excuse worth reporting and there is no reason why our airport is in darkness. I will be announcing the decision we will make tomorrow at 9 am at JKIA after a meeting with the leadership of the airport. Once again I am sorry,” Mr Murkomen said on social media.
The airport operator Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) said that one of its stand-by generators, which serves the terminal, did not kick in after the grid went off.
Generators serving the flight control tower and the airport runway were functional at all times, Murkomen said in a televised news conference, adding that no passengers or aeroplanes were put in danger by the outage.
Apart from JKIA, major hospitals and even the president’s office compound were affected. Isolated cases of blackouts occur quite often in various parts of the country.
Murkomen said KAA’s board had terminated the contract of Managing Director Alex Gitari, appointing Henry Ogoye as acting head.
It also transferred JKIA’s manager, Abel Gogo, to manage a different airport, replacing him with Selina Gor.
The country has experienced a number of nationwide blackouts, including one on August 26 that lasted for more than 20 hours, with supply in some regions going on and off.
The August blackout followed another in March which Kenya Power attributed to a system disturbance.
In December and November 2022, power outages hit Nairobi, Mount Kenya and coastal regions. The blackouts were also attributed to a system disturbance.
As of the time of publishing, Nairobi, Kiambu, Siaya, Kwale, Kisumu and other major towns had confirmed power outages.