It never got to 5000mw - we stopped at 3000MW. And we consume about 2000MW - so there is excess capacity - but if you add 30% for transmission losses - KPLC really should not blame IPP. The over-capacity charge is very small.
The connection was also financed by World Bank and Kenya Gov under Last Mile Program- so again lame excuse.
Heavy consumers - about 500 of them contribute to 80% of power consumption - so take them away and KPLC is more kaput.
Now that supply side issues have been resolved, the solution is to drive demand side by reducing the cost of electricity - we have Africa 2nd worst cost of per unit - at 22 cents usd. Ethiopia, Tanzania and name them are doing under 10 cents a unit. In fact most manufacturers are only able to function by developing their own captive power.
How do we reduce cost of electricity?
Start with KPLC itself behaving life a parastal instead of lean profit driven company - we may need MANITOBAs to come back and run it - or split it to induce competition.
2nd - Auction system for power purchase is needed asap - that way KPLC will buy the cheapest available source of power at anytime - and only buy expensive thermal power at peak hours.
3rd - Gov has to think about COAL - that Kitui coal - can give us cheap power if we burnt it. There is no power source as cheap as coal. We can produce power at less than 1 shilling a unit. In KTDA - firewood power is very cheap compared to having electric boilers - cost come to less than a dollar per unit of power produce.
So we need to tell enviromentalist to go to developed countries and switch their coal plants - and allow us to use the cheapest source of power. Otherwise we still cut trees for charcoal and firewood anyway - a more ecological danger - than mining coal and burning it.
Once we have reduce the cost of power - everyone will afford to use electricity to cook, bathe, - and consumption will go up. This is a price elastic commodity...it's not Unga.Safaricom never complains about poor kenyans - not affording internet or airtime - at right prize - they can afford.
The genesis of KPLC troubles can be traced to jubilee 1st term policies. Mainly increase of electricity generation to 5000 megawatts while country only consuming less than 3000. KPLC is forced to buy excess capacity. Then the disastrous universal electricity connection irrespective of consumers' ability to afford installation and usage. Now we have almost 1m idle connection that kplc has to maintain.
The solution is to allow generators to sell power directly to consumers especially the heavy consumers. The generators can pay for transmission and distribution.