The government has revealed plans to deal with power disruptions in the country.
In a Cabinet dispatch on Wednesday, they will use Sh66 billion to unbundle the power transmission lines system so that power failure in one line does not impact an entire region.
"To deal with the overloading of transmission lines that causes outages, the Bomet-Narok line will be built with €400 million (Sh66 billion) from the African Development Bank," the Cabinet agreed.
Cabinet further said the €1.2 billion (Sh200 billion) KenGen solar power project at the Seven Forks Dam will safeguard against power failure.
President William Rut who chaired the Cabinet meeting directed the Ministry of Energy to deal with the challenge of power failure comprehensively.
Ruto said frequent power outages were hurting Kenya’s investment profile.
Kenya has experienced power blackouts three times in less than six months with the latest happening on December 10, 2023.
Energy CS Davis Chirchir attributed the Sunday power blackout to an overload in the Kisumu- Muhorono line.
The CS said that the Kisumu-Muhoroni line was designed to carry 80MW but at the time of the blackout, it was transmitting 149MW.
Chirchir added that Kenya needs $5.3 billion (Sh813 million) to overhaul power transmission lines and forestall frequent blackouts.
He, however, said that the government currently only has $250 million (Sh38 billion) for grid upgrades.
He blamed low investment in the maintenance of transmission lines for the current reoccurring blackouts.
"We have not invested much in the networks. We plan on giving out several networks to be built by private firms. This will ease the pressure for more funding from the state," Chirchir said.
CS Chirchir hinted at power rationing in some areas that have experienced frequent overloads of the electricity transmission line as a caution to future national blackouts.
"Rather than the system burning itself down, it’s good that it switches itself off. We will scale monitoring operations and even conduct load shedding (power rationing) to limit overloading on the lines," said the CS.
The government is planning to construct the Narok – Bomet 132kV and complete Sondu – Ndhiwa 132kV power lines to deload the Kisumu- Muhoroni- Chemosit power line.
Energy PS Alex Wachira said the new line will provide stability in South Nyanza and Central Rift regions.
