Kenya Power has commenced the nationwide rollout of a new meter reading system based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, a move designed to drastically enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and speed of collecting customer consumption data.
The rollout across all eight of the company's operating regions marks a significant and critical milestone in the utility firm's ongoing digital transformation initiatives, aimed at enhancing service delivery and customer experience.
The new OCR system directly replaces the traditional, error-prone manual method of typing meter numbers and readings.
Instead, meter readers will now use a smart device to simply scan a meter’s display for instant, high-precision digital data capture.
Kenya Power's management stated that this transition is specifically expected to drastically reduce human error while cutting down the time spent collecting monthly data from postpaid customers.
With the OCR system, the meter reader will just be required to scan the meter, and the system will pick the meter readings automatically.
This will save time and eliminate human error that is likely to occur if the meter reader manually types the readings.
The company is targeting the deployment of this technology to all 1.8 million postpaid meters across the country that still require physical reading and monthly submission of consumption data for billing.
This national deployment follows a successful six-month pilot programme conducted exclusively in Nairobi between March and September 2025, which confirmed the technology’s ability to reduce billing anomalies that arise from incorrect readings.
The move is expected to address a long-standing source of customer complaints related to estimated or inaccurate bills, contributing to better billing integrity across the utility's user base.
Tags: Kplc EPRA Ministry of Energy And Petroleum Opiyo Wandayi
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