knbs data: Kenya Power & Lighting Company and Kenya Electricity Generating Company ke.knbs.electricity-capacity.annual annual

Installed and Effective Electricity Capacity by Source.

VERSION v2026-08-18
UPDATED 19d ago
CHECKED 1d ago
COVERAGE 2018 - 2024
SHAPE 112 × 8
SIZE 5.5 KB
FREQUENCY annual
PIPELINE automated
LICENSE Not stated

How much electricity Kenya's power stations could produce, and how much they could actually produce, for the seven years to 2024. 112 observations across seven sources and their total, in megawatts, on two measures the source defines itself: installed capacity is the maximum a station could theoretically produce running flat out, and effective capacity is the maximum it is expected to reach given its current operating constraints.

The gap between them is what this dataset carries that no other KNBS table does. Kenya's installed capacity was 3,235.5 MW at the end of 2024 and its effective capacity 3,107.8, so 127.7 MW of built plant, 3.95 per cent, could not be counted on. That is 73.9 MW more than in 2018, when 2.73 per cent was unavailable: the share is half as large again as it was, having peaked at 4.67 per cent in 2022.

Geothermal accounts for half the shortfall on its own: 940 MW installed against 876.1 effective in 2024, a 6.8 per cent derate, the worst of any source. Solar loses 0.6 MW of 212.5, and the Ethiopia import link none at all.

Thermal oil capacity fell from 807.7 MW in 2018 to 605.8 in 2024, a quarter of it retired, while solar rose from 50.7 to 212.5.

The rows are two levels and the dataset says which in source_level. Summing across levels double counts: filter to component first.

Installed capacity for these years is also published in ke.knbs.electricity-supply, drawn from the Statistical Abstract, which carries a longer span and no effective capacity. The figures agree. This one is the Economic Survey's, and it is the only place the two measures appear together.

Ethiopia HVDC carries nulls rather than zeros before 2022. The link was commissioned that year, and zero would say it existed and produced nothing.

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PAPER CAPACITY

128 megawatts of Kenya's built generating plant could not be counted on in 2024, against 74 megawatts in 2018.

Installed against effective generating capacity · MW · 2018 to 2024

SOURCE: Kenya Power & Lighting Company and Kenya Electricity Generating Company · via Kenya National Bureau of Statistics · Installed and Effective Electricity Capacity by Source (annual) · Updated 2026-08-18
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CITATION · APA 7

imibare contributors. (2026). Installed and Effective Electricity Capacity by Source [Data set]. imibare. v2026-08-18. https://imibare.org/datasets/ke.knbs.electricity-capacity.annual