President Uhuru Kenyatta is Friday set to launch the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project in Marsabit County which will be the largest wind farm in Africa.
The project will inject 310 megawatts of clean energy to the national grid. It has 365 wind turbines with a capacity of 850 kilovolts each. The zero-emission project is set to contribute in filling the energy gap in the country as well as enhance energy diversification.
According to State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena, the low-cost energy generation plant will contribute to ongoing efforts by the government to lower the cost of electricity. It will also save 16 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions compared to fossil fuel power plants.
“It is part of the plan by President Kenyatta to hit 100 per cent of clean energy by next year,” she said.
The Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) plant will make it possible for consumers to save more than Sh8 billion over the first half of this year, which would have been billed as fuel costs paid to thermal power generators.
This is according to the owners of the wind farm, who noted that over the first six months of the year when the country experienced a prolonged dry spell, power from the plant helped keep the thermal plants at bay.
Hydropower plants experienced a major reduction in production during this period and the tradition has been to switch on thermal plants, which was kept at a minimum.
“Over the last six months, the wind farm has been able to produce 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity. If we did not have this power and considering that there has been a dry spell, there would have been an intense use of thermal power producers,” said Rizwan Fazal, a director at LTWP.