Here is what caused the historical black out in Kenya!

On Tuesday this week, many parts of Kenya including Nairobi, Western
Kenya, Mount Kenya region Central and South Nyanza experienced a
massive power outrage that lasted over 48-72 hours.

This power outage that happened around 10am on Tuesday morning is said
to have occurred after 4 towers of transmission lines between Kiambere
dam and Embakasi transmission center collapsed leading to darkness and
loss of revenue to both the business entity and the electricity
company.

After almost 4 hours of total darkness, the electricity company with
much effort managed to restore some of the damage and by end of
business on Tuesday the problem was solved in other areas except for
Nairobi that again experienced a sustained fault on the 220kw power
transmission line of Susuwa- Embakasi that sends power to bulk
substations.

Kenyans have been incurring high power bills since December and these
have continuously been complaining mostly on social media regardless
of the President’s announcement of the reduction of power bills by the
end of last year.

On 12th December 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta on the country’s
Jamuhuri day celebrations promised Kenyans that soon their going to
experience lower power bills and to many this was observed as an early
Christmas gift that was worthy celebration.

The celebrations didn’t last long as the Energy and Petrol Regulatory
Authority issued an updated statement of the new electricity schedule
that saw a slight increase of power charges from 4shs and 21cents to
4shs and 63 cents an issue that is traced to have come from the many
stakeholders who are in the electricity industry.

After public outcry, in early January 2022 the Energy and Petrol
Regulatory Authority delivered the first installment of the cheap
electricity plan that saw an average cut of 20% to energy charges
resulting to a 15% cut to power bills and these amendment tariffs were
published in a special issue of the Kenya gazette. The Authority
committed to deliver a further 15% power cut to electricity costs by
the end of March 2022.

The Kenya power, a body responsible for electricity in the country
links the collapse of towers to vandalism of tower metals by scrap
collectors who have lately made it a habit to sell these metals but
warned them of the consequences if caught in action.

The business sector across the affected areas was badly hit by this
outage and according to the Kenya Association of Manufacturers a total
of over Ksh100million was registered in losses whereas the Power
Company also greatly suffered.

On visiting the affected area, the Energy Cabinet Secretary Monica
Juma accompanied by other colleagues announced that investigative
teams are reviewing the integrity of the country transmission
structure and urged the public to back the implemented reforms by the
Energy sector.

By the end of the week, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations had
interrogated 18 staff members including five senior officials of the
Power Company which has since faced tragedies of re-organization,
resigning of some officials and others.

Kenya has on numerous times faced incidences of power outages and in a
period between 4th December 2021- 11th January 2022 three major power
outages have occurred due to the collapse of power transmission lines.