The Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) has doubled the amount of electricity being evacuated from Ethiopia to Tanzania to 100 megawatts (MW) as it steps up grid tests ahead of the start of a regional power trade deal.
John Mativo, Ketraco’s managing director said that the load was doubled on Tuesday, following the successful evacuation of 50MW last week. This brings the total amount of power being evacuated to 300MW, given that Ketraco also imports 200MW from Ethiopia to Kenya.
A successful evacuation of the 300MW is key to the roll-out of a deal where Ketraco will earn an estimated Sh800 million a year in wheeling charges for shipping electricity from Ethiopia to Tanzania.
“We are now importing 300MW from Ethiopia for the very first time. All systems are holding up well,” Mr Mativo told this publication.
The trial is meant to ascertain if the Ketraco network can safely evacuate for both Kenya and Tanzania simultaneously, ensuring that the line does not trip and trigger outages in the two countries.
Tanzania inked a deal with Ethiopia Electric Power (EEP) to import 100MW of electricity. The imports are meant to shore up the supply of power in northern Tanzania.
The length of the deal remains undisclosed but will run for at least three years, a period in which Ketraco stands to rake in at least Sh2.4 billion from Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco).
Tanzania says that importing electricity from Ethiopia to its northern region via Kenya is cheaper and results in lower system losses compared to moving power from the southeastern region, which is a longer route and ultimately leads to higher system losses.
System losses refer to electricity that is lost from the generation point to the end consumer. Long distances and low-capacity lines are key drivers of high system losses.
“Importation of electricity from Ethiopia through Kenya will help eliminate frequent outages and minimise the substantial energy losses incurred during the long-distance transmission (from southeastern region to the northern parts),” Gerson Msigwa, the spokesperson of the government of Tanzania said in March this year.
The high-capacity 1,045 kilometres of network from Ethiopia to Kenya underscores Ketraco’s critical role in ensuring affordable and reliable electricity in the northern parts of Tanzania.
Ketraco is evacuating the power using the 500 kilovolts (kV) high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line linking Wolayta/Sodo in Ethiopia to the Suswa substation in Kenya. The electricity is then pushed to the border town of Namanga via a 400kV line, and onto a substation in Arusha.
The electricity interconnector linking Namanga to Arusha was completed in December 2024, nearly two years after the completion of the Ethiopia-Kenya HVDC line.
Importation of power from Ethiopia to Tanzania via Kenya is also key to the regional power trade under the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP).
Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia, Libya, DR Congo, Djibouti, South Sudan, Rwanda, Sudan, Egypt and Burundi are members of EAPP. The economies are keen to tap the high production of affordable hydropower in Egypt and Ethiopia.
