Kenya Power has announced that it has registered a Ksh. 1.4 billion net profit for the financial year ending June 30 2021. This is a marked improvement from 939 million loss the company reported in the previous financial year.
The significant growth to profitability by Kenya Power is attributed to a rise in revenue and a reduction of costs during the financial period that ended in June 2021.
Revenue during the period increased to Ksh. 144 billion from Ksh. 133 billion in the previous period. Sales for the year grew by 5% growth to 8,571 GWh from 8,171 GWh. The company attributes this to 716,206 new customer connections who contributed an additional 400 GWh, and a rebound of the economy from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. All customer segments recorded growth, with commercial and industrial growing by 4.8%, small commercial by 5.1%, domestic customers by 4.9% and street lighting by 10.2%.
Operating expenses dropped by 17% to Ksh. 39.9 billion from Ksh. 47.8 billion. This was due to a reduction in provisions for trade and receivables from Ksh. 3.27 billion the previous year to Ksh. 354 million. Finance costs also reduced by 27% reduction to Ksh. 9 billion from Ksh. 12.5 billion due to a decrease in interest on loans and overdrafts. In the financial year in question, the company repaid Ksh. 20.26 billon in commercial loans which included the partial conversion of overdrafts into a term loan.
System losses, which had risen to 25.21% in the first half of the year, were reduced to 22.7% in the second half. This was due to timely billing of customers, replacement of faulty meters, and curbing electricity theft. Overall system efficiency stood at 76.05% as at the end of June 2021.
To further improve system efficiency, the company is planning to increase the coverage of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) project, which presently covers 6,718 or 80% of large power customers to full coverage by the end of 2022. Plans are also underway to expand SME coverage, which stands at 54,272 SMEs, by a further 67,000 during this financial year. The company has also completed the regional border metering project and is stepping up the implementation of feeder and transformer metering, currently at 33% and 95% completion respectively, to aid in identifying high loss feeders for targeted interventions.
Going forward, Kenya Power is planning to increase the uptake of the self-service platform, *977#, which with over 2 million registered users recorded over 19.6 million transactions in the period. The company also intends to roll out a plan to drive the uptake of electric vehicles in the country. It is also exploring the lit fibre business, in order to increase the penetration of internet connectivity across the country, particularly in the rural areas. The company’s fibre network presently offers dark fibre services to the country’s major ISPs to facilitate the provision of internet services to the end buyer in the retail and enterprise segments across the country and neighbouring countries.
The board of directors of the company did not recommend a dividend for the financial year ending June 30 2021.
The Kenya Power and Lighting Company PLC (Kenya Power) transmits, distributes and retails power to customers throughout Kenya. In the period between 1922 to date, it has extended its transmission and distribution network across the country, covering a total of 248,834 kilometres. As at June 2021, the Company had over 8.3 million accounts and enabled 75% of the country’s population to access the national grid.