Did you know that you can actually calculate your domestic usage of electricity shown on your power bill as consumption. You can even monitor and calculate your daily, weekly or monthly usage. Here is how.
The most important thing to know is what customer category you are in. In the case of a domestic customer, the cost charged by KPLC as contained in the Schedule of Tariffs for Supply of Electricity approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission is under Method DC. The tariff schedule can be viewed or downloaded from the KPLC website www.kplc.co.ke. It provides for a charge of Shs.8.10 for one unit of electricity or one Kilowatt hour for customers who use between 51 and 1,500 units. The consumption of most domestic customers is within this range.
The Kenya Power & Lighting Company (KPLC) has installed a meter at the premises of each domestic customer, which records the number of units of electricity used at the premises. The electricity units can be read on the face of the meter. It is this figure that meter readers from KPLC record whenever they visit a premises, and it is the basis for generating a bill.
For the monthly consumption, the difference between the current reading on the meter and the previous reading gives the number of units of electricity used. By multiplying this number with Shs.8.10, you get the total value of electricity consumption during that period. Using this simple mathematical calculation you can confirm the correctness of the money you are being charged under the consumption item contained in the power bill you get from KPLC.
Of course, the bill will contain the fixed charge, which also goes to KPLC. Value Added Tax, other levies and fuel cost charge that are collected by KPLC are remitted to the various other players in the sector.
| Surcharge | Rate / Notes |
|---|---|
| Fuel Cost Charge (FCC) | Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC in the Kenya Gazette (but not on their website!). It is reflective of the cost (to KPLC) of generating electricity during the previous month. |
| Foreign Exchange Rate Fluctuation Adjustment (FERFA) | Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC. This includes the sum of the foreign currency costs incurred by KenGen, sum of the foreign currency costs incurred by KPLC other than those costs relating to Electric Power Producer, and the sum of the foreign currency costs incurred by KenGen. |
| Inflation Adjustment (IA) | Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC. Factors include the Underlying Consumer Price Index as posted by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and the Consumer Prices Index for all urban consumers (CPI - U) for the US city average for all items 1982 - 84 as published by the United States Department of Labour Statistics. We are not certain why the cost of Kenyan electricity depends on how much folks in the USA are spending. |
| WARMALevy | Variable rate per kWh, published monthly by KPLC. It is determined from the amount of energy supplied from hydroelectric facilities in the previous month. |
| ERC Levy | 3 cents per kWh |
| REP Levy | 5% of the base rate |
| Power Factor Surcharge | A surcharge applied if the consumer's power factor falls below 0.9. The surcharge applied is 2% of the base rate and the demand charge for every 1 per cent by which the Power Factor is below 0.9. |
| VAT | 16% on everything except the WARMA, ERC and REP levies (Prior to 2 September 2013, consumption less than 200kWh was exluded from VAT, and VAT was charged at 12%. These concessions were removed in the VAT Act 2013.) |