How Ketraco plans to fix wayleave problem and hit its 8,000km electricity lines target

Kenyan consumers have continued to shoulder the burden of surging electricity bills linked to increased uptake of thermal and emergency power due to what the energy sector regulator said were delays in setting up high voltage lines to evacuate cheaper hydro and geothermal power.

But the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) has blamed the delays on headwinds associated with land acquisition for power wayleaves.

Fernandes Barasa, who took over Ketraco’s corner office in April, has promised to use both the courts and dialogue to settle land purchase challenges and complete the transmission lines in time.

The Business Daily spoke to Mr Barasa on the wayleaves challenges and how he plans to steer the organisation.

What amount of responsibility does Ketraco take for the delay in building the transmission lines and the fact that completion of Olkaria 280MW wasn’t synchronised with your plans to set up high voltage lines?

Evacuating power from Olkaria was in 2006 domiciled under the Kenya Electricity Expansion Programme (KEEP) which lies with the Kenya Power. This was before Ketraco was formed. When we came on board the plan was to construct the Loiyangalani-Suswa line.

Much later, in order to meet the demand for Olkaria, we separated construction of Suswa substation form the Loiyangalani-Suswa project, expanded and fast tracked the substation. However, we have faced wayleave challenges in the area, which we are currently resolving.

What can Ketraco say have been its achievements since establishment in terms of infrastructure?

Ketraco was set up as a specialist transmission organisation, to attract concessional funding, ensure public ownership of assets acquired by government and ensure regions that were off-grid also get access to reliable power via the national grid.

In light of this, we have up to date constructed over 1,000km of transmission infrastructure in about six years compared to 3,200 km built between 1956 and 2008 when Ketraco was set up.

Our asset base has increased from Sh9 billion in 2010 to Sh78 billion in the last financial year. Ketraco is currently implementing various priority projects totalling to about 5,000 km of transmission lines, comprising : 2,000km of 132kV, 600km of 220kV, 1,800 km of 400kV AC lines as well as 620km of a 500kV HVDC line between 2014 and 2017. By 2030, we will have developed about 11,230 km of new high voltage transmission lines at an estimated current value cost of $3.55 billion.

How much savings and benefits do you expect to realise once all these projects are complete?

At this time it is difficult for us to quantify an exact figure because the saving covers a wide spectrum. Kenyans will experience savings of not just the part of their bill that is as a direct result of relying on thermal and diesel generators, but also the savings of having a stable system.

This translates to reduced losses incurred in the transmission process and fewer blackouts as a result of having alternate lines feeding the grid. This means we will be more productive as a nation resulting in not just savings but higher rate of development.

However, we can talk of immediate savings every time an off-grid region connects to the grid. For instance, when the stand-alone thermal generators were recently switched off in Garissa, the annual savings of that one act are approximately Sh750 million.

When the towns of Garsen, Mpeketoni and Lamu were connected to the grid, the switching off of the stand-alone generators would save as much as Sh250 million per annum.

What do you want to accomplish during your tenure?

The goal is to have 8,000km of transmission lines by 2020. We want to double what has been done in over 50 years in four years.

This means not only reinforcing the grid, but also upgrading the infrastructure, scaling up electricity access, modernising the transmission system and evacuating power from new renewable energy generation sources that are coming on board. To achieve this we need to boost our relationships with power generators, financiers and all relevant stakeholders.

What opportunities do you see in leasing fibre capacity to telecom players?

Ketraco has a growing electricity network within which fibre optic cables are strung along the power cables for operation purposes. This means that whenever we take power, there is fibre.

Excess fibre is used for commercial telecommunication. We made about Sh300 million in revenue last financial year by leasing lines to Safaricom and Jamii Telecom.

We think we can make five times more when we venture into light fibre. Our overhead fibre is very safe and strategic.

Resilient telecommunication network requires reliable connectivity. Ketraco fibre being overhead is always the first choice over buried fibre or micro wave connectivity wherever our connection exists. This is because of the security it offers. 

Ketraco operates as a national long hauler of fibre, and the telecom operators lease this dark fibre to support their long haul redundancy to ensure reliable links.

Locally, the current National Broadband Strategy has set out a minimum broadband penetration target of 35 per cent penetration for households and 100 per cent for schools and health facilities by 2017.

This creates a large demand for secure connectivity, which is where we come in. With the transmission lines Ketraco is constructing, there will be ubiquitous broadband availability to households, businesses, learning institutions and other public service facilities in the next three to four years. 

What regulatory, legal changes do you propose to tackle the wayleave headache?

When it comes to land matters the documented law is the 2012 National Land Act. Currently this Act lacks the subsidiary legislation that will give elaborate procedures to be used for acquiring wayleave for energy, pipeline and fibre projects.

We are working with other organisations who have similar wayleave challenges in reviewing the Land Act so as to include the subsidiary legislation.

This will anchor everything pertaining to partial (wayleave) and permanent land acquisition in law, making opposing development projects unreasonably a criminal offence.

However, the Energy Bill, which is up for debate soon, has considered the practical solutions within the energy sector’s sphere. 

What is the rationale behind setting up a national load centre?

We are setting up the National Load Dispatch Centre because of the government’s decision to vastly expand the electricity sub-sector in a short time.

This is a decision based on the need to mitigate poor electricity supply the country has experienced, leading to negative impact on attracting investors.

One key way to improve investor interest is to ensure a stable power supply. To do so, the Jubilee government has embarked on expanding energy generation, transmission and distribution.

These three go hand in hand, you cannot expand one and ignore the other two. In every system, there must be a control mechanism.

For Kenya it is the current National Control Centre (NCC), while internationally this system is referred to as the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC).

Our NCC was commissioned in the 1980s when national demand was less than 500MW. Since, there has been a steady growth in demand of about 4-6 per cent annually to a national demand of 1586MW.

What is important in this conversation is that Ketraco has been tasked with the Transmission System Operator (TSO) functions. A new spacious National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) is key in this respect.