KAM yesterday hosted a dinner sponsored by Kenya Power for large power consumers drawn from the Nairobi South Region during dinner at the Panari Hotel in order to outline its plans for them in the coming months. Kenya Power CEO, Dr. Ben Chumo who has been instrumental in driving similar roadshows for KAM members in all 7 chapters called for more frequent meetings with the service provider in order to tackle power problems faster.
KAM members from Industrial area and Athi River chapters turned out in big numbers to fill the venue. They also constitute the power provider's biggest consumers with companies such as Bamburi Cement Ltd which is the largest national consumer. Large consumers in the Nariobi south regions number upto 1171 with a monthly power bill of KES 1.5 billion.
Currently this region has 8 primary and 2 switching substations serving industrial consumers with a total installed capacity is 366MVA. The operator is currently running a campaign - Operation Boresha Stima Viwandani (OBSV) which will see more reliable power being delivered to industrial companies. If things go according to plan, the Nairobi South Region will have 65 additional feeders which will help alleviate frequent outages. Some of the additional feeders will be set up through IVPs with companies such as Gulf Power.
Already an incidence analysis shows that broken MV jumpers and twisted conductors cause up to 57% of all outages. Kenya power intends to have a number of shut downs in order to strip the whole system through Jumper rehabilitation, changing poles to concrete etc. This will lead to less incidences of outages as shown in the Coca Cola feeders which have stabilised to 0 incidences of outages and the fedha feeder which is now down to 2 incidences but will be down to 0 after a final shutdown to do final repairs.