A brief from the Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum, Opiyo Wandayi shows that the negotiations with the 54 power producers are at various stages, with some set for further talks this month.
Parliament lifted a seven-year moratorium on new PPAs last week paving the way for resumption of the talks with concerns that the country is tinkering on a crisis amid power rationing and increased reliance on imports from Ethiopia and Uganda.
Majority of the 54 power plants are for hydropower with the rest being for wind and solar. The biggest one of these will be two wind power plants, each with a capacity of 100 MW.
“KPLC commenced engagement on PPAs with 65 generation projects with a total of 1,112 MW and majority being small hydropower,” the brief reads.
“Developer shared a marked-up draft PPA and updated the financial model. However, mark up showed the developer disagreed with most of KPLC’s position. Requested developer to share matrix of issues and final positions on issues before team resumes PPA drafting.
Developer scheduled for a meeting within November 2025,” Kenya Power says on one of the plants.
The negotiations include four other wind plants, each with a capacity of 50 MW. These are owned by Chania Green, Prunus Energy Systems, Aperture Green and Sub-Sahara W.
One of the 100 MW wind plant is owned by Hewani Energy whose joint owners are Seriti Green of South Africa and Eurus Energy of Japan.
This plant will be built in Meru County. The other is owned Kipeto Energy, a power producer which already has another running PPA with Kenya Power.
Most of the negotiations were put on ice after MPs extended the freeze on new PPAs two years ago as the lawmakers sought more time to investigate the existing PPAs blamed for steep prices of electricity.
The moratorium has left Kenya in a scenario where a surging demand has outstripped local generation, forcing Kenya Power to increasingly lean on Ethiopia and Uganda to shore up supplies.
Electricity imports have significantly grown over the last four years with their share in the national grid more than doubling to 10.6 percent or 1.53 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the year to June 2025 up from 4.87 percent a year earlier and one percent in 2021.
Increased importation of electricity from Ethiopia and Uganda has helped to avert power rationing (from 5pm to 10pm) on a bigger scale.
Power rationing is the controlled and temporary cutting of electricity supply to consumers to avert overloads on the grid when demand exceeds the available generation capacity.
Kenya Power is now expected to speed up talks with the power producers following the lifting of the moratorium.
Expeditious talks are critical in helping to avert the power generation crisis by ensuring no further delays to efforts of onboarding new power plants. It takes at least one and half years to construct a plant.
The disclosures further show that Kenya Power held a number of meetings with the power producers last month. Most of the firms are pushing for financial closures to pave the way for the start of the projects.
