Update: By 1:00 a.m. on Friday, most parts of the country had power supply restored following a nationwide outage that occurred on Thursday evening.
In a statement timestamped 9:30 p.m., Kenya Power announced: "We are glad to report that power supply to parts of Western Kenya, Kisumu, Nakuru, Thika, Nairobi (Eastlands, Westlands, Industrial Area and CBD) has been restored."
However, customers still reported persistent outages in Thindigua and Ngoingwa in Kiambu County, Ruaraka and Utawala in Nairobi, and some parts of Mombasa. To which Kenya Power gave an assurance that restoration efforts were underway.
Kenya Power PLC had issued an update following a widespread power outage experienced in most parts of the country.
In the statement issued at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 2, Kenya Power cited a grid disturbance as the primary cause noting that it had affected customers countrywide.
"At 5:40 pm (EAT) today, we experienced a system disturbance on the grid resulting in power supply disruption in most parts of the country," the statement read in part, adding: "We will issue an update on the progress of the power restoration exercise within two hours."
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History of national blackouts
While nationwide blackouts are fairly rare, the March-April-May long rains season has seen most areas around the country experiencing frequent outages that sometimes last days.
Various residential areas in Nairobi have reported blackouts that lasted over two days with most being attributed to transformer malfunctions.
The national grid has remained mostly stable in recent months with the last countrywide blackout having been nine months past, in August 2023.
At the time, Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir and Kenya Power CEO Joseph Siror were summoned by the National Assembly Committee on Energy to explain the cause.
KPLC had also attributed the outage to a loss of 270MW generation from the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant (LTWP).
READ: Kenya Power: Why total restoration of power is taking longer than expected
Kenyans had experienced three nationwide blackouts between January 11, 2022, and August 25, 2023:
- On January 11, 2022: The Kiambere-Embakasi high voltage transmission power line fell over, causing a nationwide blackout.
- On March 4, 2023: A fault on a transmission line caused a nationwide blackout lasting several hours. Initial reports indicated that the outage was caused by a fault that occurred on the Suswa-Loyangalani high-voltage power transmission line.
- August 25, 2023: Power outage caused by a loss of 270MW generation from the Lake Turkana Plant
READ: Energy CS, Kenya Power CEO in hot water after nationwide blackout