Tech & Power Generation

Kenya’s peak electricity demand hits a record 2,549MW as KenGen revenue rises 6.4%

23rd September, 2026

Kenya’s grid carried a record 2,549MW on 15 July, and KenGen, which supplied 57.2% of the country’s electricity in the year to June, reporting revenue of Ksh59.7 billion. The generator is putting its cash into new capacity towards the roughly 5,540MW of renewables it aims to add by 2034.

KenGen’s revenue rose 6.4% to Ksh59.7 billion in the year to 30th June, with operating profit up to Ksh14.2 billion from Ksh13.6 billion, and a fortnight after the books closed, Kenya’s peak electricity demand set a new record of 2,549MW on 15 July.

The 8,975GWh KenGen supplied to the national grid over the year made up of 57.2% of the total and more than 90% of what it dispatched came from renewable sources, drawn from an installed base of 1,786MW in which hydro contributes 826MW and geothermal 754MW.

Profit after tax held at Ksh10.35 billion against Ksh10.48 billion, a 1.2% dip that KenGen attributes to finance income falling from Ksh4.1 billion to Ksh2.9 billion as cash went into capital investment, while repayments cut borrowings by Ksh12.2 billion to Ksh97.1 billion and finance costs fell 12.1% to Ksh2.0 billion.

Kenya’s economy grew 5.3% against 4.9% the year before, according to KenGen, whose managing director and chief executive, Eng. Peter Njenga, described record demand as “a powerful signal of a growing and increasingly connected economy”.

The projects the company has put first are the 63MW redevelopment of Olkaria I, the 42.5MW Seven Forks Solar Project, an 8.6MW upgrade of the Gogo hydropower plant and the 58.42MW Wellhead Leasing Geothermal project, with battery storage and a plan to raise the Masinga Dam behind them.

Outside generation, the KenGen Green Energy Park Park, gazetted as both a special economic zone and a customs-controlled area, took on its fifth investor in July, and the company now sells geothermal consultancy from Tanzania and Eswatini to Bhutan.

Njenga has set the company’s ambition at about 5,540MW of new renewable capacity by 2034, a little over three times the 1,786MW it operates today.

Images: Unsplash

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