The Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) plant in Kenya has successfully connected 129MW of a projected 310Mw of clean power to the national grid. Vestas 75 wind turbines were successfully ‘switched on’ on 12 October 2018.
In a tweet announcement by LTWP, “today we expect to hit a major milestone with LTWP likely to cross the 100MW mark, feeding this energy into the grid by the end of the day. Whilst it has been a long journey, we’re so proud to be at the forefront of it with the support of GoK, @KenyaPower & our development partners”.
Lake Turkana Wind Power Project (LTWP) is the single largest private investment in Kenya’s history. The wind farm covers 160 square kilometres and is located in Loiyangalani District approximately 545 kilometres north of Nairobi.
The KSh70 billion wind farm aims to provide 310 MW of reliable, low-cost wind power to Kenya’s national grid, enough to supply one million homes. On completion, the project will comprise 365 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 850 kilowatts; the associated overhead electric grid distribution system and a high voltage substation that will connect it to the national grid. The power produced will be bought at a fixed price by Kenya Power (KPLC) over a 20-year period in accordance with the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the latter.
The project proponent is the LTWP consortium comprising KP&P Africa B.V and Aldwych International as co-developers, Investment Fund for Developing Countries, Vestas Eastern Africa Limited, Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd, KLP Norfund Investments AS and Sandpiper.
The project has been plagued by delays largely due to the Kenyan government’s failure to construct and finish in time a transmission line connecting the wind farm to the national grid due to land compensation challenges.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
