Consumers call for second power supplier after nationwide outage

The inability by Kenya Power to provide steady power supply has heightened calls for a second independent electricity distributor amid growing outrage over frequent countrywide outages.

Hundreds of businesses reported suffering steep losses after the latest outage on Saturday.

The country’s main airport and gateway Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) was without electricity for some time from 5:34am Saturday morning as its generators failed to pick up immediately power went off, forcing the authorities to switch them on manually.

JKIA has three back-up generators which means one is supposed to automatically kick in if the other one fails and if the first two fail then the third one powers the airport but they all failed, raising questions about the security apparatus at the country’s biggest airport.

Hundreds of passengers had their flights delayed as the check-in counters were closed and those who had arrived had to wait for about 40 minutes before operations resumed.

The government has admitted liability saying it is investigating the matter.

“There were slight delays for international departures as the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems for the baggage handling equipment have a standby capacity of 20 minutes which was exceeded,” Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia told Sunday Nation.

“There is a contingency plan for power failure, but two generators that serve the terminals were unable to switch on automatically and had to be switched on manually, but no diversions were experienced as the Runway lights were not affected as the generator that serves them came on automatically,” he said.

Airport runways have Visual Approach Slope Indicator (Vasi), which is a system of lights visible from up to 32 kilometres away on a cloudless night and eight kilometres during the day, that indicate to an approaching pilot that they are near an airport and should initiate the landing procedure.

Air operators say it would have been a disaster if they went off or the control tower became unreachable during the drama even if it was for a few seconds.

“Clearance to land is supposed to be given in the final seven miles to landing, and if the pilot cannot reach the control tower, then he has to start regaining attitude and remember there are other planes who also want to use the same airport and the difference in landing or taking off slots is just moments apart,” said Captain Gad Kamau, the chairman of Wilson Airport Aircraft Operators.

“What should be of even greater concern is what could happen in the few seconds that the airport buildings do not have power. It means the CCTVs are not working, security communication gadgets are dead and luggage is being carried by hand. Anything can be sneaked in at this time,” he said.

TECHNICAL HITCH
At the centre of the controversy is electricity distributor Kenya Power, which has been accused of abusing its monopoly by not caring to maintain its systems, which have turned the national power blackouts almost into a monthly affair.

Just last month a monkey reportedly climbed onto the roof of the Gitaru power station and dropped onto a transformer, tripping it and causing other machines at the power station to trip on overload resulting in a loss of more than 180MW from the plant which triggered another national power blackout.

In March, a fault on two major transmission lines to the Rabai grid caused a system disturbance plunging Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu counties and almost the entire coastal region into darkness for several hours.

In January, a fault on the bulk supply transmission system at the Juja substation in Nairobi resulted in a blackout that affected almost the entire country.

The substation acts as a distribution point for almost the entire country apart from the Coastal and Western regions.

Seven Forks Hydro stations on Tana River, which includes Masinga power station (40 MW), Kamburu (94 MW), Gitaru (225 MW), Kindaruma (72 MW) and Kiambere (168 MW), which are all connected to the Juja substation, contribute a significant amount of electricity that is consumed in the country.

Additionally, power from the Olkaria Geothermal fields whose capacity stands at 579MW single handedly provides half of Kenya’s electricity needs, courtesy of a campaign by the government to lower the cost of electricity by increasing renewable energy production and connectivity through the Last Mile Project.

However, all the power from Olkaria is evacuated to the Juja Substation through the 220KV Olkaria 4-Nairobi transmission line, which is the only link between Nairobi and the geothermal fields.

The transmission line is currently operating at full capacity and any fault on it plunges almost the whole country into a blackout.

West Kenya, the North Rift and Coastal regions are the only ones that would not suffer blackouts in case of a fault on this particular line.

The North Rift and Western regions get their power from Turkwell, Sondu and Sang’oro Power in Uganda while the Coastal region mostly gets its power from thermal producers.

Yesterday’s was no different.

“A technical hitch led to the tripping of our main supply line – Olkaria Nairobi 220KV leading to a power outage in most parts of the country,” a statement from Kenya Power said.

Power was restored in North Rift, Western, South Nyanza, Mt Kenya and Central Kenya at 10 am and shortly after 11am in the other affected areas.

FUTURE PLANS
The Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek), which has in the past viciously fought the power distributor over its perceived abuse of dominance, was turned into a lame duck as Kenyans sought for answers on why they were without electricity for hours.

“We have orders from court against us not to comment on Kenya Power, please bear with us,” it said in a statement.

Nevertheless, Kenyans vented their anger on the power distribution company on social media with the hashtag #NationalBlackout being the leading trending topic the whole.

Cord has also not taken the frequent national blackouts lightly, saying they are negatively affecting the economy and cost of living.

“The frequent power outages are a manifestation of the Jubilee administration’s incompetence in the management of the economy. The cost of production continues to make Kenya an expensive investment destination,” the coalition’s principal Kalonzo Musyoka told the Sunday Nation.

Kenya Power is the sole distributor of electricity in the country with at least 2.6 million customers.

It buys electricity from KenGen and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) plus neighbouring countries like Uganda and Tanzania.

There are also plans to purchase electricity from Ethiopia which would pass through the Suswa Substation.

The substation is designed to be the largest in term of size, power handling capacity and use of technology.

Its construction was started in 2012 in anticipation of increased power output from Olkaria and is supposed to be the connection point for almost half of the country’s power capacity, including linking the coastal region to cheaper geothermal electricity.

It is also supposed to enable line switching so that whenever a fault occurs on one evacuation line, another can take its place thereby maintaining a country wide stable power grid.

Additionally, it is supposed to reduce pressure on the Juja substation by two additional substations at Isinya and Ngong, in what is known as the Nairobi Cyclic Electricity Ring.

The substation i however sitting idle as the completion of the laying of a 400 KV line between Suswa and Isinya has stalled for close to two years now due to a conflict between the Maasai community and the government over land compensation issues.

SECOND DISTRIBUTOR
Land owners in Embakasi, Nairobi, too, are said to be standing on the way of a 270 KV line as well as the Nairobi Metropolitan ring, which is supposed to carry 404 KV.

Cartels and middle men too who are buying land from the community to resell it at ridiculous prices to the government are further complicating the process.

In the Suswa conflict, community leaders say there was lack of consultation and the government failed to consider that being a pastoralist community, the Maasais depend on their land.

“One of the greatest undoing of these projects is the lack of consultation with the locals who live off the land where these projects are located,” Mr Ben ole Koissaba, the chair of the Maa Civil Society Forum – an umbrella of NGOs formed to promote land rights told the Sunday Nation.

“Ever since the beginning of the geothermal project we have been repeatedly forced to move to adjacent lands only to be moved again, when a new project phase is initiated," he said.

"This is done without any due consideration that the Maasai depend on the land and that every move has a direct impact on our survival because it reduces grazing land for our livestock, which is our mainstay.”

Attempts to take away the monopoly of power distribution from Kenya Power through licensing a second independent power distributor have never borne fruit with the processes always stalling at some point due to political meddling.

The latest such attempt was in April when Parliament passed the Energy Bill 2015, which would have among other factors forced Kenya Power to pay its consumers if there is a power outage lasting for more than three hours a day.

The Bill, which had been lying in the National Assembly for almost a year was passed to the Senate for review where it is gathering more dust.