Kenya, Ethiopia to inter-connect their power grids

Kenya’s quest to tap additional electricity from Ethiopia to fix an energy supply shortfall has inched closer following a bilateral pact between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi reached on Tuesday.

The heads of state, both attending the 14th AU Summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, instructed their Energy ministers to speed up inter-connection of the national power grids.

The inter-connection will enable Kenya to access additional electricity to bolster its wavering supply which keeps fluctuating with weather patterns.

Kenya also need addition energy to power its high speed economic growth. 

Apart from energy supply, the two leaders also reviewed plans on other infrastructural projects including the envisioned construction of a transport corridor which comprises of a road link, railway line and oil pipeline stretching from the proposed Port of Lamu along the Kenyan coast to Ethiopia and Sudan.

At the turn of the year, President Kibaki announced that Kenya was now ready to begin works on the corridor.

“The corridor is the long term solution to the transport problems between Kenya and Ethiopia. The corridor will facilitate the development of the Northern Kenya as well as the Southern part of Ethiopia,” said a statement by the Presidential Press Service.

Also under way are plans to link the two countries via fibre optic cable.

Ethiopia is the only Eastern African country with sufficient power supply backed by a reserve margin of more than 30 per cent - double the recommended margin of 15 per cent.

The Horn of Africa country is expected to realise a generation capacity of 2,000 megawatts by the end of this year once the three new hydropower projects it is building are completed and intends to export the surplus to neighbouring states.

Tuesday's talks were a milestone for Kenya as they could pave the way for construction work to begin mid next year and see Ethiopia to exporting electricity to Kenya in the next two years.

It appears that past differences over the electricity import deal that stalled two years ago amid opposition by environmental groups to the construction of a new hydro power dam in the neighbouring state had been resolved.

A 400 Kilovolts international power transmission line over 1200 kilometre power grid is to be built at a cost of Sh29 billion.

Energy experts see the project as critical to Kenya’s long term energy security needs with the potential to add more than 500MW to the national grid at a cost of Sh29 billion “within the shortest time possible.”

It takes at least seven years to develop new hydropower sources even with ready financing.

Geothermal power, which has proved to be Kenya’s viable alternative energy source, costs more and takes longer (10 years) to develop.

Kenya was initially set to import power from Ethiopia’s contentious and biggest hydropower project, Gibe III--with a potential power generation capacity of 1800MW, but the plan was put on hold after activists raised concerns over the possible environmental and social impact.