Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi has come out to explain the cause of the Friday morning power outage that affected several parts of the country, with the exception of the North Rift and Western regions.

The blackout came just a week after the last major outage, and barely a day after CS Wandayi had sternly expressed his ministry’s commitment to significantly reduce the incidents and rolled out strategies to tackle challenges facing the sector.

The CS, in a statement to newsrooms, disclosed that the blackout was caused by a trip in the Loiyangalani transmission line as well as a similar one on the Ethiopia - Kenya interconnector, which affected the grid.

“Today, Friday 6th September 2024 at 8.56 am, the 220kV High Voltage Loiyangalani transmission line tripped at Suswa substation while evacuating 288MW from Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) plant,” noted Wandayi.

“This was followed by a trip on the Ethiopia – Kenya 500kV DC interconnector that was then carrying 200MW, resulting to a total loss of 488MW. The total demand in the system at the time was 1790 MW. The loss of 488MW, accounting for 27.3% of the total generation, resulted in cascade failure and partial collapse of the grid.”

The Energy boss went ahead to explain that the Western region was, however, not affected by the morning outage due to supply through the interconnector to Tororo, Uganda.

He stated that the government began restoration efforts immediately the outage was witnessed, and within two hours power had been restored in most major cities and towns across Nairobi, Central Rift, Mt. Kenya, North Rift regions.

These included; Nyeri, Embu, Kirinyaga, Nanyuki, Nakuru, Naivasha, Thika, Eldoret, Kericho, Kakamega, Siaya, Busia, Vihiga, Kisumu, Bungoma and Webuye.

“As at now about 70% of the country has been restored and we are fast-tracking the restoration process for the rest of the county and we will be taking more loads as generation picks and we expect normalcy by late this afternoon,” said the CS.

“What we are witnessing today has built-up over time and is as a result of sub optimal investment in energy infrastructure. The sector is looking into short-term and long-term interventions to address this challenge including bringing onboard private sector capital to supplement government efforts.”

Wandayi further noted that the government is presently looking into four intervention means in a bid to prevent such similar occurrences in the near future.

This, he added, includes pursuing the lifting of the moratorium on Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) by the National Assembly.

The other government measures, according to Wandayi, are;

Implementation of base load (hydro, geothermal) generation projects to improve energy security and provide adequate spinning reserves. During the last peak demand of 2239 MW recorded on 21st August 2024, 6MW was loadshed from the grid while the reserve margin was only 9MW against system requirement of 310 MW.

Enhancing grid flexibility and resilience by completing the following projects: Turkwell-Ortum-Kitale (Turkwell – Ortum section is already energized), SonduNdhiwa, Nanyuki-Isiolo, Narok – Bomet, Mariakani substation, repair of Loiyangalani – Suswa Transmission line for double circuit operation and migration from 220kV to 400kV operation, completion of ground electrode for HVDC for bipolar operation, Lessos substation and installation of STATCOM for voltage regulation at Suswa and Rabai.

Construction of alternative evacuation lines namely: Gilgil-Thika-Malaa-Konza 400kV to complete the Nairobi Ring to decongest Suswa Complex, RongaiKeringet-Chemosit to decongest Kisumu-Muhoroni-Chemosit, MenengaiOlkalao-Rumuruti to provide access to Mount Kenya region to geothermal power