Lights out: Kenya power grid fails again, third nationwide blackout hits nation

Kenya is in the throes of its third nationwide blackout in three months. The power blackout hit the East African nation on Sunday (Dec 10) evening.

Large parts of the nation, including the main airport in the capital, Nairobi, a major transport hub connecting East Africa to Asia, Europe and other parts of the world, have been left paralysed due to the power outage.

As per VOA, the outage on Sunday began around 8 pm local time (1700 GMT). It is the third national power supply failure in just three months.

State-run Kenya Power blamed the blackout on a “system disturbance” which it said was being looked at by technicians who were working to “restore normalcy”.

“We have lost electricity supply to various parts of the country due to a suspected fault affecting the power system,” it said in a statement.

“We are working to restore normalcy within the shortest time possible. An update on the restoration progress will be issued in due course. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused.”

As per the report, among the key establishments impacted by Sunday’s blackout were the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, as well as Eldoret Airport in western Kenya. In both places, power generators didn’t kick in after the power grid failure.

Some parts of the nation reported that power was restored after around two hours.

Just last month, in a similar power outage, it took engineers over 12 hours to restore power in most parts of Kenya.

In Kenya, state-run Kenya Power enjoys a monopoly when it comes to supply and distribution of electricity. For years, the utility provider has been accused of poor service delivery and corruption, which as per the report has led to soaring costs of electricity in Kenya.

On August 25, the worst power outage ever proved to be the longest disruption in Kenya’s history. In some parts of the country, including in the capital Nairobi, it took almost 24 hours for the power to be restored. The cause of this massive blackout remains a mystery to date. However, the power company blamed a failure at Africa’s largest wind farm for the outage.

Following the power outage on Sunday, Kenyans took to social media to demand answers for the frequent blackouts. Others mocked Kenya Power, saying it was worse than its peers in Nigeria and South Africa, where load shedding is done frequently.

(With inputs from agencies)