Kenya is set to install about 365 wind turbines in the Lake Turkana region creating the largest wind farm in Africa. The project, expected to be complete in 2012, is anticipated to cost around £533 million and have a 300-MW capacity.
North African countries like Morocco and Egypt have already joined the wind sector, but now projects are spreading and countries south of the Sahara are keen to take part. Tanzania announced plans to generate at least 100 MW of power from two projects in the central Singida region. South Africa announced in March its inclusion of wind power in its renewable energy feed-in tariff (Refit) that made its debut in April.
And while South Africa’s Refit has received a great deal of attention, it is pertinent to note that Kenya was the first African nation to establish a feed-in tariff system to encourage renewable energy (FIT Results in Kenya) in March 2008. About 60% of the country’s electricity supply is produced from rain-dependent dams, 30% from costly fossil-fuel generators, and 10% from reliable but capital-intensive geothermal. Kenyans currently consume up to 1,050 MW of electricity during peak hours against the country’s effective generation capacity of 1,185 MW, while demand grows at the rate of 8% annually.
Thus Kenya is making an effort to become one of the main leaders in the wind sector for the continent with not only the Turkana project in the pipeline, but the Ngong hills near Nairobi, Vestas also installed six turbines that will add 5.1 MW to the national grid from August.
The Dutch consortium behind the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project has leased 66,000 hectares of land on the eastern edge of the world’s largest permanent desert lake. The LTWP will construct a 266-mile transmission line and several substations in order to bring the energy collected from the wind to the national grid. The company will sell its electricity to Kenya Power & Lighting.