Kenya Power will buy 14,500 meters and transformers for industries and large businesses as the utility races to protect revenues and reduce billing disputes amid a steady growth in connections and consumption.
The State-owned firm floated the tender to procure 4,500 pieces of Low Voltage Current Transformers (LVCT) with capacities of 500/5A (Amperes) to 1000/5A and 10,000 pieces of three-phase smart meters.
The purchase is part of the company's efforts to have enough transformers for stepping down electricity and smart meters to track consumption anomalies.
“The accelerated smart metering marked a major step in strengthening Kenya Power’s ability to monitor, measure and respond to consumption anomalies in real time,” the utility says in its latest annual report.
The number of customers crossed the 10 million mark in the financial year ended June 2025, helping grow sales by 8.4 percent to 11,403 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) from 10,516GWh.
Three-phase smart meters handle higher loads and are used for industrial, commercial and large residential settings.
Transformers with capacities of 500/5A to 1000/5A are used to step down loads for the heavy consumers.
Apart from connecting more customers, Kenya Power says it retrofitted more than 304,000 meters by June 2025 in addition to piloting geo-fencing and optical character recognition to improve coverage and billing accuracy ahead of a nationwide rollout.
Kenya Power has been grappling with inaccurate billings, with customers lodging complains every month.
The Auditor-General has flagged the hitch in recent reviews of the utility.
In its latest annual report, the company says it has not yet fully addressed the problem, stressing why it needs more smart meters.
Smart meters are central to Kenya Power’s revenue protection measures. The company rolled out a programme dubbed "Gigawatt project" in the last financial year year, which helped stop the loss of 327.91GWh across all customers categories.
The project that was in the 47 counties involved sealing meters and replacing faulty ones, helping cut commercial losses to 4.36 per cent in the year under review from 6.28 per cent a year earlier.
Kenya Power recorded a net profit of Sh24.47 billion in the year to June 2025 on the back of higher unit sales, improved system efficiency and lower sales cost.
However, the profit was a drop from Sh30.08 billion the previous year, with the decline largely attributed to the reduced retail tariffs across most consumer categories and reduced forex recovery due to the strong shilling.
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