KENYA TO MAKE HISTORY WITH LARGEST WIND POWER PLANT IN AFRICA NEARING COMPLETION
(Posted 20th January 2017)
A 310 MW wind power investment worth nearly 700 million US Dollars is nearing completion in the Turkana area of Kenya. This constitutes one of the largest private foreign investments in Kenya’s history by a single company.
According to information are now all but 65 of the projected 365 wind turbines installed and the remaining units will be put up over the coming weeks.
The 430 KM link to the national Kenyan power grid is also nearing completion to then feed a total of 310 mega watts into the system, expected to happen in June this year.
A smaller such plant has been operating in the Ngong Hills outside the capital Nairobi and been producing just over 25 MW of power but will be dwarfed by the new facility which has been designed, financed and constructed by a foreign investor.
The new power plant, as is the expanded used of geothermal energy sources, will reduce Kenya’s carbon footprint and provide electricity from renewable sources, bringing some relief to the country which is suffering one of the worst droughts in recent times, reducing the capacity of hydro electric power plants due to low reservoir water levels.
