Kenyan households are watching their electricity bills climb month after month, and November brings yet another painful increase.
The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority has announced that power will cost an additional KES 4.78 per kilowatt hour (kWh) this month, adding KES 237.50 to the bill of an average household using just 50 units.
The increase comes from three main sources, each chipping away at household budgets. The biggest culprit is the fuel energy cost charge, now sitting at KES 3.81 per unit.
This reflects what it actually costs to generate electricity from thermal power plants, which burn expensive imported fuel. In October, this charge was KES 3.69, so fuel costs have continued their upward march.
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Currency fluctuations are the second major factor. The foreign exchange adjustment adds another KES 95.89 cents per unit in November. This is actually down from October’s KES 1.54, offering some relief as the shilling performed better against major currencies.
When Kenya imports fuel or pays independent power producers with contracts denominated in foreign currency, a weaker shilling makes everything more expensive.
September data showed the power sector collectively gained KES 1.59 billion from foreign exchange movements, with independent power producers taking the largest share at KES 899.5 million.
Then there’s the environmental cost. The Water Resource Management Authority levy adds KES 1.29 cents per unit to support water resource management, a tiny increase from October’s KES 1.24 cents.
Kenya generated and purchased 1.24 billion kWh in September, with hydropower plants contributing 257 million of those units.
These new charges stack on top of existing costs that never went away. Every electricity bill includes a 16% VAT, a 3-cent EPRA levy, and a 5% Rural Electrification Programme levy that funds power connections in rural areas.
There’s also an inflation adjustment charge that gets reviewed twice a year, with the next review coming January 1, 2026.
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October was actually slightly worse than November. The total increase then was KES 5.24 per unit, driven by that much higher foreign exchange adjustment. So while November’s numbers look bad, they’re a marginal improvement from the month before.
What this means in practice is that a household using 100 units will pay KES 478 more this November than they would have paid before these adjustments.
For families already stretched thin, that’s real money disappearing into electricity costs driven by factors completely outside their control.
