Kenya Outlines Plans for 5,000 km of New Power Lines

Kenya plans to add 5,000 km of high voltage power lines to its existing 3,767 km network by 2017 at a cost of about 200 billion shillings ($2.28 billion) as it expands it power generation, the energy ministry said on Wednesday.

Only 31 percent of Kenya's 40 million people are connected to the grid, while businesses complain that frequent blackouts due to supply shortages and an aging transmission network raise costs by forcing them to have back-up generators.

The government has already outlined plans to add 5,000 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity by 2017 to the existing 1,664 MW and aims to increase the proportion of Kenyans connected to the grid to 75 to 80 percent by the same date.

"Within this period, we will see about 5,000 km of 132 kV (kilovolt) lines put up, and ... many substations," Joseph Njoroge, the Energy and Petroleum Ministry's principal secretary, told a meeting to discuss the five-year strategy that runs to 2017.

He told reporters the cost was of putting up the extra lines was "in the region of 200 billion Kenyan shillings".

Njoroge said work had already begun on a new 400 kV power line linking the port city of Mombasa to Nairobi that would extend to western Kenya and onward to Tororo in Uganda. A 500 kV link between Ethiopia and Kenya is also under construction.

Njoroge said that at a later date, the links could also extend to Rwanda and Burundi, adding that cross-border connections would help cut shortages and help demand management.

As part of its plans to boost generation, Kenya plans to build a 700-800 MW natural gas-fired power plant and a 900-1,000 MW coal power plant. Njoroge said bids were being evaluated and the winners could be announced in three weeks.

"It is a very guarded process to ensure fair play and to ensure that the country gets value for money," he said.

($1 = 87.5500 Kenyan Shillings)

(By George Obulutsa, Editing by Edmund Blair, editing by David Evans)