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Kenya Power will sign a fresh power purchase agreement (PPA) with Muhoroni Gas Turbine —owned by KenGen and the most expensive thermal plant in the country— to shore up power supply to western Kenya.
Peter Njenga, managing director of KenGen, said talks are currently underway with the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) over the tariff to be charged, with the deal expected to be for one year.
Muhoroni GT is one of the most expensive thermal power plants and sold a unit of electricity to Kenya Power at Sh56.73 under its PPA that lapsed last year.
Kenya Power has for months been forced to load shed electricity supply in the western region in a bid to ease pressure on ageing transmission network. Removal of the 60-megawatt Muhoroni GT from the grid has further compounded supply woes in the region.
“We are looking to extend the PPA for between six months to one year. It (talks) is already at an advanced stage. We have already done a presentation of our requirements and we are now talking with Epra,” Mr Njenga said Tuesday morning.
“We are looking to ensure that power cost does not go up, to see if it will be at the previous tariff or slightly lower so that we can support the economy through affordable power.”
A report tabled in Parliament last year revealed that Muhoroni GT supplied the costliest electricity to Kenya Power, which was more than double the price offered by the then second most expensive power from Iberafrica Power at Sh24.04 a unit.
Muhoroni GT was, before its removal from the national grid, critical in curbing frequent power shortages experienced in parts of western region and by extension, the Rift Valley.
Kenya is keen to expand the capacity of evacuating power to western and Rift Valley regions mainly through construction of new lines, in order to end the challenge of overloading lines and also supply more to the regions.
One of the major lines meant to boost supply to western region is the Sh2.1 billion Olkaria-Narok-Bomet line, whose completion is set for next year.
Others are the Kisumu-Bondo-Rangala-Nyaga line and Kitale-Tongaren-Webuye-Musaga lines, each with a capacity of 132 kilovolt (kV). The construction will be funded via public-private partnerships.
Extension of the deal with Muhoroni GT highlights the dilemma facing the western region, where transmission lines frequently get overloaded and thus trip, leading to outages.
Load shedding in the region started after an overloaded Kisumu-Muhoroni 132kV line tripped, throwing the country into a blackout that lasted for hours.
Renewal of the Muhoroni GT deal flies in the face of Kenya’s ambitions of switching off the expensive and dirty thermal power plants from the grid, as part of lowering the retail costs of power and also greening the national grid.
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