Country to be segregated into four regions to tame power outages

The government is now planning to divide the country into four regions in a bid to arrest the frequent power blackouts.

The country has in recent months been hit by unprecedented power outages paralysing operations in critical areas like airports.

The outages have impacted negatively on the country’s economy.

While appearing before the National Assembly’s Energy Committee on Wednesday, Energy Cabinet Secretary said they have short term measures that would ensure the country is not thrown into darkness in the near future.

The ministry will be involved in segregation/islanding/unbundling of the transmission and generation networks into four regions, to ease offloading power and elimination of power surges.

The measures which will cost Sh463 million, will be rolled out within 90 days.

The first phase will comprise coastal counties followed by Mt Kenya (Seven Forks) and Nairobi region, while the third component will be rolled out in Olkaria, Central Rift and Nairobi.

According to the CS, the fourth region earmarked for the multi-million shilling intervention will comprise of Western, North and South Rift as well as Nyanza.

 “This is expected to be complete by March 31, 2024. What we have set out to achieve in the short term is islanding to ensure that whenever power goes off in one region, the entire country is not affected," Chirchir said.

The CS also told the committee chaired by Mwala MP Vincent Musyoka that his ministry is in the process of enhancing dispatch of Turkwel Hydro Power plant and alternative supply to Kitale and Eldoret.

The dispatch, he noted, will be carried out by installation and commissioning of a transformer at Kitale sub-station, an activity that will be completed by February 28, 2024, at a cost of Sh250 million.

The ministry, according to the CS, is also prioritising completion of Kimuka sub-station to offload Nairobi North and Embakasi sub-stations by an approximate 100MW.

This completion will cost Sh213 million and will be ready by January 31, 2024.

"We have also agreed that there is need to curb the voltage dips and frequent power fluctuations in the Coast region by for instance the Malindi solar power plant to help address voltage dips by mitigating intermittently," Chirchir said.

"There is also the prioritised completion of Mariakani substation and Devki Steel Mills to address excess power pumped into the grid. We project to have completed this by February next year."

As part of measures taken to ensure the country is not plunged into darkness, the Energy petroleum and Regulatory Authority (EPRA) will also within 90 days carry out an audit to ascertain compliance to the grid code.

 “So far, we have ensured optimal loading of transmission lines and equipment to avoid overloading with targeted load shedding in affected areas," the CS added.

Also lined up to contain the situation include enhancement of the human resource for grid management, deployment of full shifts at major stations as well as upskilling of system control and operational engineers.

The ministry has also embarked on improvement of the welfare and remuneration of critical staff.