By Francis Zyder
In Summary
- Kenya Power has embarked on a customer engagement programme targeting industrial and commercial consumers
- The engagement programme comprises industrial visits and establishment of regional industry liaison offices
- Large power consumers account for about 60% of Kenya Power’s revenue from sale of electricity
- Kenya Power has deployed smart meters for large power customers, which allows them to easily access their readings and minimize on human intervention
- It is in the interest of the company to provide power that is reliable and competitively priced
Electricity distributor Kenya Power has said it is keen on enhancing service delivery to large power consumers in a bid to promote the manufacturing sector and encourage a 24-hour economy.
To achieve this, the Company has embarked on a customer engagement programme targeting industrial and commercial consumers, which presents an opportunity to identify supply challenges and develop a resolution matrix that is tailor-made to address each customer’s concerns.
“It is in our interest to give you power that is reliable and competitively priced,” said Kenya Power’s Managing Director & CEO Dr. Ken Tarus. He was speaking at a meeting with premium customers metered at 66kV.
The engagement programme comprises industrial visits, establishment of regional industry liaison offices to enable coordinated and efficient response to customer issues, segmentation and grouping of customers into WhatsApp groups to encourage real time communication and incident management.
Large power consumers account for about 60% of Kenya Power’s revenue from sale of electricity. In December of 2017, the Company introduced a Time of Use tariff targeting this class of customers that is meant to encourage more uptake of electricity at off-peak hours hence promote 24-hour manufacturing activity.
“We would like to thank our large power customers for the support this far. Moving forward, we have put in place some critical interventions to continuously improve our service delivery. We have a number of ongoing projects which upon completion will improve power supply,” said Dr. Tarus.
Completion of a distribution substation that is currently under construction in Embakasi is expected to pave way for evacuation of additional geothermal power, which will boost supply in Nairobi, especially to customers in Industrial area.
The Company has deployed smart meters for large power customers, which allows them to easily access their readings and minimize on human intervention.
In addition, the Company is keen on expanding the distribution network through construction of additional substations and lines to avail alternative supply points to large power customers. This move is expected to reduce downtimes caused by planned and unplanned outages and increase productivity.