The country should expect electricity prices to significantly drop before end of year with planned commissioning of additional output capacities from KenGen’s wind and geothermal projects.
The power producer intends to fully commission both its 280MW geothermal power project and additional 20.4 MW of wind power from Ngong hills by September and October respectively.
Plans are to drastically reduce reliance on the expensive thermal power and weather-dependent hydro energy to address current high power costs resulting from poor rains experienced over the long rain season leading to drop in water levels across main reservoirs.
Kengen Chief executive Officer, Albert Mugo Thursday told journalists this is part of government initiatives aimed at stepping up effort to boost supply of cheaper renewable energy in the country.
“The company was fast-tracking its renewable energy projects, comprising wind and geothermal as part of Kenya Government’s target of adding 5,000MW to the national grid by September 2016,” said Mugo during an inspection tour of company’s Ngong wind farm projects.
The firm began testing the vision 2030 flagship geothermal power plants earlier in the year.
Phase two of the Wind power project is almost complete with financing from Belgian and Spanish governments at a cost of Sh 3.7 billion.
Belgium supported provision of eight turbines at a cost of Sh 1.4 billion and it cost spain Sh 2.3 billion for 16 turbines.
KenGen is expected to contribute 844MW over the time frame as it prepares to kick off construction of new wind plants with a capacity of 100MW in Meru, the second largest after Turkana’s 300MW in output potential.
The power producer is studying more than 10 sites for Wind power production to boost its contribution by 650MW by 2017-with plans to spend Sh 105 Billion this financial year in boosting power production.