Kenya Power has restored electricity to 90 percent of customers affected by a fire that razed the Musaga Substation in Kakamega, ending days of darkness for households and businesses across five Western Kenya counties.
The fire broke out at the substation on the night of Friday, August 7, cutting off power supply to Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, Siaya and parts of Vihiga counties. In a customer alert issued shortly after the incident, Kenya Power said it was rerouting electricity through alternative supply lines as engineers worked to contain the damage, though it did not disclose what caused the fire.
By Monday, August 10, the company confirmed major progress in restoring supply. It said customers previously served by Musaga had been shifted to alternative supply points through the Webuye, Mumias, Eldoret, Kitale, Kisumu and Rang’ala substations.
“To minimise the impact of the outage, customers who were previously served by Musaga Substation have been transferred to alternative supply points… However, some customers may continue to experience low voltage as the network operates under these temporary arrangements,” the company said in a statement.
Kenya Power Managing Director and CEO Dr Eng. Joseph Siror visited the site to inspect restoration work, which includes recovering damaged control and protection cables and laying new ones to restore protection systems for the 132/33kV transmission lines serving Tororo, Webuye, Lessos and Mumias.
“This work is critical to safely bringing the affected transmission lines and the substation back into operation. Efforts are also underway to secure replacement transformers and restore the full capacity of Musaga Substation,” the company said.
Musaga Substation links to the national grid through the 220kV Kibos-Kakamega-Musaga transmission corridor, which supports high-voltage stability and geothermal power integration across the region, underscoring why the fire caused such widespread disruption.
Kenya Power thanked affected customers for their patience, saying teams have been working around the clock to complete the repairs. The utility firm did not give a timeline for when Musaga Substation itself would be fully operational again.
The incident came barely a week after customers in Nairobi, the Coast, Mt Kenya and parts of the Central Rift endured a separate outage lasting about four hours on July 29, which Kenya Power attributed to a technical disruption in the national grid.
With alternative supply arrangements now in place, focus has shifted to permanently repairing Musaga Substation so that Western Kenya’s power network can return to normal capacity.
