Monday this saw the signing of final agreements for the financing of the Lake Turkana Wind Power - LTWP project. This was the completion of a long, 9 year process that began with a fishing on trip on Lake Turkana, that yielded no fish, but a lot of wind on boat trip.
The signing of finance deals worth 498 million euros (~ Kshs. 60 billion), will go towards LTWP which at Kshs. 75 billion is arguably both, the largest single wind power plant in Africa and, the largest single private investment in Kenya.
The Kenya Government has committed to raise the country's electricity generation capacity to 5,538MW (from the current 1,600) by the year 2017. 630MW of that will be from wind, and they they have identified five strong wind areas in Ngong, Turkana, Kinangop, Kipeto and Isiolo - and hopes that using renewable sources of energy like wind will bring down the cost of electricity to consumers, and save on fuel import costs for the country.
The government's KETRACO agency will build a 428 kilometer 400 kV like from Suswa to Laisamis that they say will be ready in 24 months and which will also link up with geothermal plants along the way.
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