Electricity costs in Kenya

See here for information about the proposed electricity tariff increases in 2013. This page contains a record of current and historic electricity prices in Kenya. It was last updated with data up toOctober 2013. If you are not interested in the details, jump straight to the graphs of total cost.

Core tariffs
These are the core tariffs set by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company. They do not change frequently. See below for the additional (and quite substantial) variable surcharges.
Charges (KES) Tariff Fixed charge Energy charge (per kWh) First 50kWh:2.00 DC (Domestic, 240V) 120 50 to 1 500kWh:8.10 Thereafter:18.57 SC (Small Commercial, 240V) CI1 (Commercial, 415V) CI2 (Commercial, 11kV) CI3 (Commercial, 33kV) CI4 (Commercial, 66kV) CI5 (Commercial, 132kV) IT (Domestic water heating) 120 800 2 500 2 900 4 200 11 000 120 8.96 5.75 4.73 4.49 4.25 4.10 4.85 n/a 600 400 200 170 170 n/a n/a Demand charge (per kVA)

Surcharges
Presently, the surcharges cost more than the base rate itself. They are applied on all tariffs as follows.
Surcharge Fuel Cost Charge (FCC) Foreign Exchange Rate Fluctuation Adjustment Rate / Notes Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC in the Kenya Gazette (but not on their website!). It is supposed to be reflective of the cost (to KPLC) of generating electricity during the previous month. Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC. This includes the sum of the foreign currency costs incurred by KenGen, the sum of the foreign currency costs incurred by [KPLC] other than those costs relating to Electric

Surcharge (FERFA) KenGen.

Rate / Notes Power Producers, and the sum of the foreign currency costs incurred by

Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC. Factors include the Underlying Consumer Price Index as posted by Kenya National Bureau of Inflation Adjustment (IA) Statistics and the Consumer Prices Index for all urban consumers (CPI - U) for the US city average for all items 1982 - 84 as published by the United States Department of Labour Statistics. Why on earth does the cost of Kenyan electricity depend on how much folks in the USA are spending? ERC Levy REP Levy 3 cents per kWh 5% of the base rate 16% on everything except the ERC and REP levies and Inflation Adjustment VAT (Prior to 2 September 2013, consumption less than 200kWh was exluded from VAT, and VAT was charged at 12%. These concessions were removed in the VAT Act 2013.)

The rates that vary monthly are, then, the FCC , the FERFA, and the IA. Their variation is charted below. These data are taken from our monthly electricity bills. Please verify it directly with KPLC if it is important to you.
Date range: All 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 0 200 400 600 800 Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan
cents/kWh (click and drag inside the grid to zoom in, double-click to reset)

09 10 11 12 13

(show tabular data)

Total cost
Below is a chart of the average cost of electricity for each tariff, worked out from all the costs described above. It is an estimate of what you can expect to pay on your monthly electricity usage per kWh, excluding fixed and demand charges. The DC cost is based on the 50-1500kWh usage band.
Date range: All 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Tariff: DC, SC, CI1, CI2, CI3, CI4, CI5, IT 0 5 10 15 20

Jan Jan Jan Jan Jan

KES/kWh

09 10 11 12 13

(click and drag inside the grid to zoom in, double-click to reset)

(show tabular data)