A massive power outage hit parts of the country on Friday, August 25, with most Kenyans complaining of blackout.
The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) confirmed a power supply interruption at around 9.45pm.
In a statement, Kenya Power said the outage in various parts of the country was because of a system disturbance.
“We experienced a system disturbance leading to loss of bulk power supply to various parts of the country.
We are working in collaboration with teams from all sector partners involved to facilitate speedy restoration of power supply in the shortest time possible.
A few minutes after midnight, the state-owned monopoly power supplier confirmed that it had restored power to parts of Central Kenya.
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Further, KPLC gave an update on the cause of the massive power supply interruption, saying it stemmed from a fault at one of the plants.
“We are glad to report that we have successfully restored power supply to Mt Kenya Region. We are working to restore normalcy in all other areas as soon as possible.
Initial reports indicate that the power outage was caused by a fault on one of the generation plants,” Kenya Power said in a statement at 0045hr on Saturday morning.
One of the critical areas that experienced the outage was the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport – JKIA with reports indicating that there was total darkness at the airport after standby generators also failed.
“Following a nationwide power blackout, one of the generators serving JKIA’s T1A and parking silo failed to start, resulting in a power outage in a section of the airport. This has been rectified and all generators are now fully operational. Power has been restored to the affected areas,” said Kenya Airports Authority in a statement after the outage.
However, on Saturday, August 26, KPLC confirmed that it had restored power supply to “JKIA and other critical areas within the Nairobi metropolitan.”
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The management of KPC added, “Our teams are working to restore electricity to all areas across the country that were affected by the outage.
We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused and we thank them all for their patience.”
However, questions have emerged as to how and why emergency power generators at JKIA failed when the outage hit the country.
