A survey conducted by Kenya Power has revealed more than 70 per cent of prepaid electricity users prefer to use their mobile phones to buy electricity tokens than any other method.
Safaricom’s M-Pesa, a mobile-phone based money transfer service, is the most popular facility accounting for 95 per cent of all mobile based prepaid purchases.
Kenya Power currently has 340,000 customers on prepaid metering system.
John Wekesa, Kenya Power’s chief engineer in charge of prepaid metering, said customers have always shown their preference for M-Pesa and other mobile money services such as Airtel Money to purchase tokens since the initiation of the prepaid metering project four years ago.
He said approximately 25 per cent of prepaid customers prefer to use third party vendors and supermarket outlets, and about 5 per cent make their purchases from the Kenya Power banking halls every month.
“The Company recently contracted three super vendors to increase purchase outlets for its growing number of prepaid customers. Kenya Power has intensified the implementation of the prepaid metering project with another 520,000 customers expected to be migrated from post pay system by end of the financial year,” said Wekesa.
To sustain the pace of new connection, he said, the company is considering using prepaid meters for all power connections beginning next financial year.
This move will target small and medium sized customers who consume not more than 2,000 units per month.
“Besides convenience, use of the prepaid system helps our customers to take control of their electricity consumption patterns, thereby promoting energy efficiency,” he said, adding that for the company, the prepaid system will reduce intrusion into the privacy of our customers while also assisting us in reduction of our operational expenses.
