Lake Turkana only waits on risk guarantees before construction begins

12 June 2012 – The Lake Turkana wind project has entered into a contract to sell power to Kenya Power over 20 years at US9.37 cents/kWh. This price means that the project can produce wind power without the need for subsidies in Kenya. The 300 MW project is being developed by a consortium of European and African companies, which intends to establish 365 wind turbines in the Lake Turkana region.

The financing for the project has been secured, and only risk guarantees from the World Bank lending agencies IDA and Miga remain to be finalised. Once these are finalised construction of the project can begin, potentially by August 2012. The African Development Bank is the lead arranger behind a loan covering 70% of the project.
 
The first step entails the construction of 204 kilometres of road to allow trucks to make the 12,000 round-trips needed to deliver all the necessary materials from Mombasa to Turkana. The turbines will be erected in one year, at the rate of one a day and the first power from the project should be delivered to the grid by the end of 2013.
 
The project will cost US$728 million, plus an additional US$177 million for 428 km of transmission line to link the project with the grid.