Kenya poised to be a power-sharing hub
What you need to know:
- Suswa is emerging as the site of one of the most crucial infrastructure installations in the country.
- The Suswa substation is also part of a power transmission line being built around Nairobi.
Kenya is positioning itself as the regional power distribution hub through which electric power from as far as Egypt could eventually be transmitted to Southern Africa.
With the construction of one of the biggest power collection points in the region at Suswa, Narok County, the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) says it expects to be able to distribute power westwards to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi as well as southwards to Tanzania, Zambia and eventually southern Africa.
The Suswa project gained added significance last week when it emerged during a power industry conference in Nairobi that Tanzania and Rwanda have signed a power purchase agreement with Ethiopia to buy 400MW of power each.
Kenya has already signed a similar MoU with Ethiopia, and Ketraco is undertaking a Sh63 billion power evacuation project via a 1,100km high-voltage direct-current line from Wolayita Sodo in Ethiopia to terminate at a conversion substation at Suswa.
Ketraco will then transmit power from Suswa through a substation being built at Isinya and onwards to Arusha.
This line will then link to Singida, still in Tanzania, and onwards to Zambia as part of the ZTK (Zambia-Tanzania-Kenya) transmission line project.
Suswa will also link up to the Ol-Karia geothermal power plants and then take power to Uganda via the Ol-Karia-Lessos-Tororo line currently under construction.
With several other high-voltage transmission lines converging at Suswa, it is emerging as the site of one of the most crucial infrastructure installations in the country.
“Suswa substation is actually a collection of substations,” John Mativo, the chief manager for planning and development at Ketraco, told Sunday Nation.
Speaking on the sidelines of the annual East Africa Power Industry Convention in Nairobi on September 3, Mr Mativo said a converter substation and a 400Kv switchyard as well as 220Kv switchyard will also be built to receive power from different sources.
ABOUT 3,300MW
“Once you have all that going, it has the capacity of bringing 2,000MW from Ethiopia, 300MW from Lake Turkana, then you have almost 700MW from Ol Karia; and then there is Suswa, which GDC is developing maybe 400-500MW, and the Menengai power plants so you are talking in the region of 3,000-3,500MW of power that will be passing through Suswa,” Mr Mativo said.
The Suswa substation is also part of a power transmission line being built around Nairobi that connects substations at Isinya, Ngong, Komarock and Athi River and connecting to existing substations at Dandora and Embakasi.
The project aims to stabilise power in the national grid by building a ring around Nairobi, which would provide alternative routes for transmission of power in case of an outage at one of the main substations serving the capital city.
Isinya will also be connected to the 400Kv line from Mombasa to Nairobi and the southward transmission line to Namanga and Arusha.
Ketraco CEO Joel Kiilu, speaking at the same event, said the company intends to have 8,400km of transmission network by 2017 to open up remote areas and also serve regional needs.
“Ketraco has already completed eight lines which are already supplying power to the national grid valued at about $250 million (Sh22bn),” Mr Kiilu said.
