Kenya to tap power from its neighbours after grid connection

Kenya’s unstable power grid will soon receive a major boost from a planned power line interconnection with Tanzania and Zambia.

The three countries have agreed to link their grids allowing those with deficits, like Kenya, to tap from those with excess energy.

“We met early this month and agreed to build the Zambia-Tanzania- Kenya interconnector,” said Anastas Mbawala, director for Tanzania’s Energy Regulatory Authority.

The decision comes shortly after President Kibaki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi signed a bilateral pact which will see the two countries merge their power grids.

Surplus

Kenya’s energy sector chief executives from state-owned power firms (KPLC and Kengen) are currently visiting Ethiopia to discuss details of the proposed interconnection which is set to begin in mid-2011 which will see Ethiopia exporting electricity to Kenya in the next two years.

The two countries plan to put up a 400 Kilovolt power transmission line over 1200 km stretch at a cost of Sh29 billion.

Ethiopia is expected to realise a generation capacity of 2,000 megawatts later this year once three new hydro power projects it is building are completed.

Zambia mostly relies on hydro generation and has surplus power that Kenya can easily tap into.

Tanzania, on the other hand, has stepped up its power generation capacity using natural gas from Songo Songo area.

The country has also intensified investments on clean energy (wind and solar) as part of efforts to expand the generation mix.

Kenya suffers perennial power shortages due to recurrent droughts which affects its hydro generation plants.

Tanzania has natural gas reserves in Songo Songo, Mnazi Bay and Mkuranga areas.

The off-shore Songo Songo gas fields in Lindi region were discovered in 1974, but gas production started 30 years later in July 2004.

It is estimated that the gas reserves are in the range of 0.8 trillion to one trillion standard cubic feet.

A total of 10 wells have been drilled in the area with five currently functional. The others with significant potential for gas production.

Current production is estimated at 70 million standard cubic feet per day.

Most of the gas is used for power generation and the rest as industrial fuel replacing oil.

Plans are under way to drill more wells in the north and west of Songo Songo Island.

With production estimated at 0.9 million standard cubic feet per day, natural gas from the Mnazi Bay is also used for power production for Mtwara and Lindi regions, generating about 4.5 MW of electricity.

Tanzania has an excess of 350 megawatts but it cannot be distributed to other countries because there are no interconnections in the region.

Power pool

Kenya also intends to tap into the southern Africa Power Pool, believed to have excess capacity.

Energy experts say interconnection is the least cost solution for power supply.

In addition, East African countries, along with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Egypt are planning to create a power pool through the aggressive tapping of alternative energy sources under the East African Power Master Plan (EAPP) which has its secretariat in Addis Ababa .

Congo’s Inga River has vast hydro potential enough to meet requirements for all the East and Central African economies, according to experts.