Kenya's grid is straining, and it is not short of power

Kenya names the problem, and it is not a shortage

Kenya Power, the national utility, said on Tuesday that the rapid uptake of wind and solar is affecting the stability and reliability of the country’s grid [1]. Variable renewables now make up more than 20% of total grid capacity, against a 15% upper limit the utility cites as a global benchmark [1]. At peak daytime demand they can reach 34% of the mix [1].

Read the complaint closely. “This exposes the national grid to system vulnerability when wind and solar suddenly dip or rise in production,” the utility said [1]. Dip or rise. Too much power arriving at once is as awkward as too little, because a grid has to match supply to demand every second.

Kenya’s contracts sharpen it. Under a take-or-pay model, the utility must buy and dispatch the wind and solar whether or not the grid wants it that minute [1]. Elsewhere an operator can order a wind farm to throttle back, a practice called curtailment, to hold the grid’s frequency steady [1]. Kenya cannot. So it runs extra plants alongside “at extra costs”, and says that cost ends up with the final consumer [1]. It recommended prioritising geothermal and hydroelectric power instead, which it calls more stable than wind and solar [1].

Europe spent a year rehearsing for two hours of shade

On Wednesday the moon passed in front of the sun over Europe, between 17:15 and 19:30 GMT [2]. Grid operators expected the eclipse to cut solar generation by up to 9.7 gigawatts across the continent, around 5 GW of it in Spain and Portugal [2]. Those figures come from ENTSO-E, the European network of transmission operators, and Spanish grid operator Red Electrica [2].

The backup plans were not about finding more energy. They were about owning things that can move. Operators lined up temporary ramp-ups of gas and coal plants [2]. They also adjusted the automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve, a system that rapidly changes output to hold the network’s frequency steady [2]. Some operators had been modelling the shadow’s path for more than a year [2].

Be honest about the outcome. Operators in France, Spain and Britain told Reuters they anticipated no disruption [2]. The eclipse fell in the evening, when solar output is already falling anyway [2]. Solar supplies about 13% of EU electricity, and matters most in summer when air-conditioning demand peaks [2].

The steady plants picked a bad week to be unsteady

The machines that normally supply the calm, unchanging floor of Europe’s grid spent the week going down.

Romania began disconnecting its sole working nuclear reactor on Thursday because of record-low Danube levels [4]. Its two 706-megawatt reactors at Cernavoda make about a fifth of national power output, and drought had already taken one offline in late July [4]. Romania has declared a state of energy emergency for August [4]. It asked companies and households to voluntarily cut consumption during peak evening hours [4]. The energy ministry switched on a 330-megawatt lignite plant and leaned on wind and hydro [4].

Hungary’s Paks plant is running at roughly 25% of capacity for the same reason [5]. Authorities began sinking two barges in the Danube on Friday and are building a riverbed sill to raise the water level, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said [5]. Scientists quoted by Reuters said the options need proper debate, and some say building cooling towers may not be economic [6].

France lost supply two ways at once. A heatwave was expected to remove about 15% of the nuclear fleet’s capacity on Friday, with six reactors fully offline [7]. Heat-related curtailments were set to peak at 9.4 GW across nine reactors [7]. Nuclear availability was set to be the lowest since August 2023, with 27.7 GW offline once maintenance and other outages are counted [7]. Separately, a jellyfish swarm shut three reactors at the Gravelines plant late on Monday and cut a fourth to half output [8], knocking out about 3.2 GW [9]. Spain, meanwhile, extended the life of its Almaraz nuclear plant through 2030 [10].

Gas is losing volume, not its job

Wind and solar generation across Europe is on track to exceed gas-fired output for the longest stretch on record in 2026, on figures from the think tank Ember [3]. A decade ago it was not close: in 2016 combined monthly wind and solar output ran 30 to 45 terawatt hours while gas often topped 100 TWh [3]. Today wind and solar produce roughly 80 to 110 TWh a month [3].

That is a capacity story, not a weather story. Europe’s gas fleet grew from about 250 GW to 400 GW over a quarter century; wind and solar went from under 20 GW to nearly 750 GW [3]. Europe now has close to twice as much wind and solar capacity as gas capacity [3].

But volume is not the same as role. The plants Europe planned to lean on for the eclipse were gas and coal [2], and the plant Romania switched on for its emergency was lignite [4]. Gas is generating far fewer hours than it used to, while still being asked for the hardest ones.

What is actually getting built

In the United States, 368 utility-scale plants came online between January and June, on Energy Information Administration data [11]. Solar led by project count with 207 and by capacity with 11,458 megawatts; batteries came second with 95 projects and 8,207 MW [11]. The three largest categories of gas plant added 2,707 MW between them [11]. The fifth-biggest new plant on the list, Green River Energy Center in Utah, is 800 MW split evenly between solar and batteries [11].

That pairing is the point. Texas set another peak demand record [12]. But the consultancy Ascend Analytics reckons more than 80% of the large new loads queuing to connect will not have matching generation online by 2030 [12]. The queue has grown by more than 200 GW since 2024 [12].

Speed is also being bought retail. In Texas, Base Power installs a battery it owns and maintains for 10 years [13]. Customers pay a one-time fee of a few hundred dollars, then $19 to $29 a month, and the batteries also serve the local distribution grid [13]. Rival Palmetto expects an effective cost of $25 to $50 a month after rebates [13]. In Australia, one in three homes now has rooftop solar [14]. Around 450,000 home batteries were installed by the end of 2025, about 4% of households, though researchers stress the grid is still needed [14].

Bigger and slower assets are moving too. ScottishPower wants to repower Whitelee, Britain’s largest onshore wind farm [15]. It would replace 215 turbines producing up to 539 MW with 124 turbines of about 7 MW each, taking the site past a gigawatt [15]. A review in pv magazine argues off-river pumped hydro is effectively unlimited, naming 800,000 candidate sites worldwide [16]. The existing fleet is already above 200 GW, with lifespans up to 150 years [16]. And in Brazil, 1,539 solar and wind plants representing about 53 GW have expressed interest in a government scheme that compensates them for being switched off [17].

The heat behind all of it

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday that extreme heat is becoming more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting as the planet warms [18]. Parts of Europe are in a fifth heatwave this summer [18].

Heat hits the clean side too. Solar panels are rated at a cell temperature of 25 degrees Celsius [19]. At 65 degrees a typical crystalline panel loses roughly 16% of its output [19]. High heat also exposes existing faults such as dirt, shading and hotspots [19].

Elsewhere on the beat, Britain opened a consultation on softening its zero-emission vehicle rules [20]. They currently require electric cars to be 33% of new sales this year, 80% in 2030 and 100% by 2035 [20]. Three of the four options keep 2035 but cut the 2030 target to as low as 50%; a fourth keeps the path and adds flexibility on how carmakers comply [20]. And the International Energy Agency said observed oil stocks fell below 7.9 billion barrels in July [21]. That is the first time since April 2025, after draws averaging 2.7 million barrels a day since February [21].