Kenya Power: This is what caused the nationwide power blackout on Friday

Kenya Power and Lighting Company on Saturday sought to explain what caused the embarrassing nationwide power outage on Friday night that lasted more than 12 hours.

Kenya Power board chairperson Joy Mdivo-Masinde explained that the massive power blackout was caused by loss of power at the Turkana power station affecting normal supply.

Mdivo says the grid lost more than the allowed 4 per cent of power hence overpowering the system that is designed to kick in when a maximum of 4 percent of its power needs is lost.

“The engineers have worked all night long, and have managed to get our Turkwel power station to put more into our grid,” announced Mdivo.

She, however, cautioned Kenyans to brace themselves for power interruptions in the weekend even as power was reconnected to most parts of the country on Saturday.

“Power will be back at some point today (Saturday) but brace yourself for intermittent supply until our engineers, God helping them, get the situation completely resolved,” she said.

She revealed that Kenya Power was forced to shut down al the other substations across the country as a protective mechanism following the failure of the Turkana power station.

“Turkana being down, means a lot of power suddenly is not available to the grid, so the limited power that is there has been prioritized and only some substations powered back up,” added Mdivo.

The Kenya Power Board boss indicated that the power supply to most Kenyan households will remain unstable as the power distributor’s engineers work to restore normalcy.

This comes even as many Kenyans, especially business operators, lamented over the huge losses they had suffered as their perishables went bad and others were forced to close their businesses as a result of the power outage that lasted more than 12 hours with no alternative.