WIND COMES TO KENYA

Huge wind farm to bring change to Kenya

Boris Bachorz, (AFP via Taipei Times)

“…[T]he rugged hills around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya…is a remote, lunar landscape and the site of what will one day be Africa’s largest wind farm…A consortium of European and African companies is preparing to put up 365 wind turbines in a 165km2 stretch of this desolate area inhabited only by semi-nomadic pastoralist herders…[T]he wind that surges between the Kulal and Nyiro mountains…rises over Lake Turkana before dying out over the Sahara, blows at an average speed of 11m per second and is a dream for any engineer working in wind energy…

“…Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) consortium…has entered into a contract to sell the power produced to utility firm Kenya Power over 20 years at a cost of 0.0752 euros (US$0.09) per kilowatt-hour (kWh), a much lower price than that paid for the hydroelectric power mainly used today…[T]he Turkana project will be a poster child for sustainable development…”

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“…[After] seven years of studies, financial negotiations and setbacks…[the] financial backing is now secured, with only risk guarantees from the World Bank lending agencies Ida and Miga remaining to be finalized…By the time it reaches its full capacity, penciled in for the end of 2014, the site will produce 300MW of electricity…The project will cost 585 million euros, plus an additional 142 million euros needed to build 428km of high-tension power lines linking the wind farm with the country’s main power transformer at Suswa…The African Development Bank is the lead arranger behind a loan covering 70 percent of the enterprise…

“LTWP has promised [the 528 pastoralists — from the Turkana, Samburu, Rendille, Gabra and El Molo tribes — who are still without electricity, running water, telephones, television and even money] a 20-year development plan of approximately 1.5 million euros each year. However, they will first temporarily have to shift their village of Sirima to clear the way for the future supply road…”

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