Four hundred megawatts to Kenya from December, double Ethiopia’s current supply

Ethiopian Electric Power is preparing to raise exports to Kenya from 200MW to 400MW from December, with a joint technical committee running trials before the higher volumes flow. Ethiopia already supplies Djibouti, Sudan and Tanzania, the last on a pilot basis through Kenya.

Two hundred megawatts currently flow from Ethiopia to Kenya, and that figure doubles in December if the technical work holds, taking the cross-border supply to 400MW and reaching the ceiling envisaged in the power purchase agreement the two countries signed in 2012.

Destalem Hailu, Deputy Chief Executive for the Transmission Business Sector at Ethiopian Electric Power, set out the plan at a regional consultative forum in Addis Ababa, with a joint technical committee running trials and grid assessments beforehand because Kenya’s system is interconnected with its own neighbours and larger flows carry stability risk across all of them.

A further 100MW already goes to Tanzania on a pilot basis through Kenya, with commercial sales expected once infrastructure upgrades between the two systems are complete, and that link is intended to run further south towards Zambia in time.

Export revenue accounts for somewhere between 6.5% and 10% of Ethiopian electricity production at present, which is the figure that makes the domestic comparison uncomfortable, since 44% of Ethiopians had Tier 1 electricity service or better in 2025 against 65% with some form of access.

Addis Ababa is pursuing both at once under its National Energy Compact, which targets Tier 1 access or higher for 75% of the population while tripling annual electricity exports by 2030.