TotalEnergies now powers more than half of its Kenyan fuel stations with solar. Don Sami Live asks why ordinary Kenyans still face high solar taxes while a fossil fuel giant quietly ditches KPLC.
When the Oil Man Starts Buying Solar Panels
Here's an irony worth sitting with. TotalEnergies, a company that makes its money selling you petrol and diesel, has quietly solarized more than half of its Kenyan fuel stations. Company disclosures show that as of December 2025, 154 of its stations across the country were running on solar power. By May 2026, TotalEnergies had grown to 285 stations nationwide, meaning over 54 percent of its outlets no longer depend fully on Kenya Power.
Think about that. A fossil fuel company, whose entire business model is built on you burning petroleum, has decided that for its own electricity needs, the grid is not worth the cost or the risk. Lights, fuel pumps, fridges, card machines, security cameras — solar now carries the load at over half its stations countrywide.
If a company whose core product is fossil fuel sees solar as the smarter long-term bet for its own operations, that tells you everything about where the real economics are heading.
So What's Keeping the Rest of Us on KPLC?
This is the real question Don Sami Live wants Kenyans to sit with. If TotalEnergies — with all its corporate muscle and access to capital — is racing to cut its KPLC bill, why is the ordinary Kenyan household still stuck paying monthly power bills that climb every other month?
Part of the answer is simple economics. Large companies like TotalEnergies, Bidco, Unilever Tea Kenya, British American Tobacco, and Simba Cement have the capital to install solar systems and recoup the cost over time through lower electricity bills. The average mama mboga, boda rider, or salaried Kenyan does not have that kind of upfront cash lying around.
But there's a second answer, and it's the one nobody likes saying out loud: solar equipment in Kenya is taxed in a way that keeps it just out of reach for ordinary households.
A Monopoly That Doesn't Want Competition
Kenya Power has openly admitted, in its own reports, that a mass industrial shift to solar threatens its revenue base. It is not a secret. When big factories generate their own power, KPLC loses paying customers. Multiply that by every household that decides to go solar instead of staying connected to the grid, and you start to see why keeping solar expensive might serve someone's interests — just not yours.
Here's where it gets even more telling. Kenya's solar sector has spent years on a tax rollercoaster. VAT was imposed on solar equipment in 2020, pushing prices up by an estimated 21 to 40 percent and slowing adoption. After heavy industry lobbying, the government reinstated VAT exemptions on solar and wind equipment in 2021. That win didn't last long in spirit. The Finance Bill 2026, currently before Parliament, proposes shifting lithium-ion batteries and solar batteries from zero-rated to merely "exempt" VAT status.
That sounds like a tax break on paper. It isn't. Under zero-rating, importers and assemblers can claim back the VAT they paid on their own inputs, keeping final prices low. Under exempt status, that refund disappears, and the unrecovered tax gets quietly folded into the price you pay at checkout. The result is the same outcome dressed up in friendlier language: solar batteries get more expensive for the Kenyan household trying to escape blackouts and rising bills.
Whose Interest Does This Really Serve?
It is hard not to notice the pattern. The companies with the deepest pockets — the TotalEnergies, the Bidcos, the Simba Cements of this world — get to solarize and walk away from KPLC's grip. Meanwhile, the tax structure on solar batteries and panels keeps shifting in ways that make it harder for the average household to do the same.
If solar panels and batteries were genuinely zero-rated and kept that way, prices would fall. More households could afford the switch. More small businesses could escape the load-shedding and billing disputes that have plagued KPLC for years. The shift wouldn't happen overnight, but the direction would be unmistakable.
KPLC's own numbers tell the story of a utility that knows it's losing ground. A national grid that cannot keep industrial customers from defecting to solar is a grid that should be racing to win back trust, not relying on a tax regime that keeps cheaper alternatives priced out of reach for the people who need them most.
If a fossil fuel company sees the writing on the wall, ordinary Kenyans deserve the chance to read it too — without a tax bill standing in the way.