Maintenance Practices and Power Plants Operational Performance in Kenya

Abstract

This research was carried out on the maintenance practices and the operational performance in the state and privately owned electric power suppliers in Kenya. The study was a cross-sectional survey. Data was collected on the whole study population at a single point in time to determine the maintenance practices and investigate their relationship with the operational performance as the dependent variable measured through availability and cost per unit. It also focused on the failure distribution within the studied power plants. The research population included a total of 25 power suppliers composed of 22 state and 3 privately owned power plants. The study was done through collection of the objective data from the plant records. Additional data was obtained from the plant managers who were the respondents in the study. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics presented through spearman’s rank correlation and t-value for the analysis. To enable collection of representative data for the study, the power plants 6 months operational data was used and the analysis was carried out in line with the above stated objectives. The study found out that there existed a relationship between the maintenance practices and the power plant operational performance. Power plants that emphasized spare parts supply most among the maintenance practices studied performed better than the other plants. Additionally there was a direct relationship between the availability of the power plants and the production cost per unit.