According to reports, Kenya’s Baharini Wind Power has hit a major brick wall with the Lamu County assembly passing a motion to invalidate the project over alleged failure to meet required conditions related to the land the project was to be built on.
A partnership between Elicio NV, a Belgian renewable energy producer and Kenwind Holdings Ltd formed Baharini Wind Power, the implementing vehicle.
Anthony Njomo, Bahari Ward MCA, said that the project investor planned to resettle residents to a land that is already demarcated, surveyed and titled, and this was against the condition to use an absolutely free land for that purpose. Njomo noted that the investor had been directly involved in the resettlement plan instead of contracting SGS Kenya to work on the plan independently, therefore directly affecting and influencing the outcome of the entire process.
The original plan would have seen 38 turbines erected in Baharini village, Lamu West, approximately 40kms from the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) Corridor project in Kililana. The 90 MW of electricity produced would have been sold to KPLC (Kenya Power & Lighting Company) under a 20- year Power Purchase Agreement.