Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi has hinted that the nationwide power blackout on Wednesday morning was as a result of a technical hitch on the Kenya-Tanzania power corridor.
- At 7:35 AM on Wednesday, Kenya Power announced that electricity had been restored to all the areas that had been hit with an outage.
- Speaking during the launch of the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation (REREC) projects in Yatta, Machakos County, CS Wandayi lauded Kenya Power’s promptness in restoring electricity.
- He also cited that power blackouts had become less frequent despite prevailing challenges with aging transmission infrastructure.
“We as a Ministry, REREC, and the KPLC are up to speed so that Kenyans should be rest assured that there will be no unusual power outages,” CS Wandayi assured.
“As a matter of fact, the frequency of blackouts has gone down, and even in those few instances where there are blackouts, we have taken the shortest time to restore power,” he added.
Kenya’s Regional Power Connections
The nationwide power outages have been consistently blamed on faults with electricity infrastructure connected with those of regional partners. The September power blackout was attributed to a trip on the Suswa substation, which was connected to Ethiopia via a 500kV line.
Kenya imports about 200 mW of electricity from Ethiopia. The 1,045-kilometre line running between Wolayta-Sodo in Ethiopia to the Suswa substation is part of the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) – a power-exchange initiative that integrates the power infrastructure of 13 countries.
The electrical fault on the Kenya-Tanzania power corridor comes days after the trial operations for the 500-kilometer transmission line in the Tanzania – Kenya Interconnection Project began. Being part of the EAPP initiative, the line links Isinya substation in Kajiado county with Arusha in Northern Tanzania. The Kenyan line will further extend north to Ethiopia while the Tanzanian line will extend southward to Zambia.
Although the initiative aims to enable low-cost energy trading in the region and stabilize the grid amidst rising demand for electricity, the infrastructural weaknesses of one country are bound to affect the electrical reliability in other connected countries.
An EPRA report acknowledged that power outages in the financial year 2023/2024 had risen by 21% due to unreliable distribution lines. Kenya initially bet on a KSh 95 billion investment proposal from Adani Energy Solutions to construct new transmission lines. The PPP deal was part of deals cancelled by President William Ruto in a November State-of -the-Nation address following an outcry by the public to dissociate from a scandal-ridden company.
