Kenya Nationwide Blackout Probe: Energy Ministry Blames Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant

• A nationwide blackout rocked Kenya from Friday, August 25, to Saturday, August 26, leaving many businesses counting losses
• Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir said the blackout was occasioned by the loss of 270MW generation from the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant
• The Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant distanced itself from the ministry's claims and attributed the blackout to overvoltage

The Ministry of Energy has blamed the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant (LTWP) for the nationwide blackout on Friday, August 25.

Energy Cabinet Secretary (CS) Davis Chirchir said the blackout, which left businesses counting losses, was occasioned by the loss of 270MW generation from the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant.

Chirchir said technical teams drawn from Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) and the Kenya Electricity Transmission (KETRACO) were reviewing the incident reports to forestall such an occurrence in the future.

"The loss triggered an imbalance in the power system and tripped all other main generation units and stations, leading to a total outage on the grid.

While there are situations where a plant could trip, our technical teams are analysing the data from the protection relays to establish the root cause of the trip, which caused a cascade failure of the system," the CS explained.

Chirchir expounded that the system demand at the time of the blackout was 1855.8 MW; therefore, a loss of approximately 15% of generation was expected to cause a widespread power outage.

What LTWP said on nationwide blackout

The Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant distanced itself from the ministry's claims that it caused the blackout.

In a statement on its social media pages, LTWP said it was forced to go offline and stop power generation following an overvoltage in the national grid.

"At the time LTWP was forced to switch off, it was producing 270MW out of a national grid of 1855MW (14.6%). The large drop in generation output following the grid system instability resulted in a situation in which the national power supply was interrupted," it stated.

KPLC announces more interruptions

On Monday, August 28, KPLC announced more electricity interruptions in Nairobi, North Eastern and parts of Mombasa county.

The electricity distributor noted power would be switched off in the areas for scheduled maintenance.

"Please find the scheduled power interruption for August 29," KPLC posted on X.

Kenyans on social media criticised KPLC over frequent blackouts.