Kenya Power has initiated a major procurement drive for 14,500 smart meters and transformers as part of its strategy to protect revenues and address persistent billing disputes amid rising electricity connections and consumption.
The State-owned utility has floated a tender to acquire 10,000 three-phase smart meters and 4,500 Low Voltage Current Transformers (LVCTs) with capacities ranging from 500/5A to 1000/5A. The equipment will primarily serve industrial customers and large commercial businesses.
According to the company, the procurement is intended to ensure adequate availability of transformers for stepping down electricity loads and smart meters capable of detecting and tracking 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.
Kenya Power’s customer base crossed the 10 million mark in the financial year ended June 2025, driving electricity sales growth of 8.4 percent to 11,403 gigawatt-hours (GWh) from 10,516 GWh the previous year.
Three-phase smart meters are designed to handle higher electrical loads and are typically deployed in industrial, commercial, and large residential installations. Meanwhile, LVCTs with capacities of 500/5A to 1000/5A are used to step down the voltage for heavy electricity consumers.
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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 faced ongoing challenges with inaccurate billing, with customers lodging complaints monthly. The issue has also been highlighted by the Auditor-General in recent reviews of the utility’s operations.
In its annual report, the company acknowledged that the billing problem has not yet been fully resolved, reinforcing the need for accelerated deployment of smart meters.
Smart metering remains central to Kenya Power’s revenue protection efforts. During the last financial year, the utility rolled out a programme dubbed the “Gigawatt Project,” which helped prevent the loss of 327.91 GWh across all customer categories.
The project, implemented across all 47 counties, involved sealing meters and replacing faulty ones. As a result, commercial losses were reduced to 4.36 percent from 6.28 percent a year earlier.
Despite these gains, Kenya Power reported a net profit of Sh24.47 billion for the year ended June 2025, down from Sh30.08 billion the previous year. The company attributed the decline largely to reduced retail electricity tariffs across most consumer categories and lower foreign exchange recovery, following the strengthening of the Kenyan shilling.
