Lake Turkana Wind Power's (LTWP) annual electricity supply to Kenya Power dipped to its second lowest last year, amid reduced wind speeds which hurt generation of clean power from the biggest wind plant in Africa.
Company disclosures show that LTWP’s net generation was 1,367 Megawatts-hour (MWh) from 1,481MWh produced in 2023. The drop came in a year when average annual wind speed in the area dropped to 9.6 metres per second (m/s) from 10.6m/s the previous year.
Last year’s annual net generation is the second lowest since the 310-Megawatt-Plant started supplying electricity to Kenya Power in 2018. The lowest annual supply was 1,284MWh in 2020 when the wind speed averaged 9.3m/s.
Wind speed is the single most important factor in wind energy generation. Turbines are designed to operate within a specific range of speeds.
The greater the speed the higher the generation. Net generation is the gross renewable electricity generated minus the power that the plant uses for its operations.
“In 2024, we delivered 1,367 GWh of power to Kenya’s national grid, equivalent to 10.89 percent of the country’s total grid energy supply. This production represents a gross annual generation capacity of 50.17 percent,” LTWP says in its sustainability report for 2024.
LTWP, located in Loiyangalani, Marsabit County, is the biggest wind power plant in Africa and is one of the major plants supplying electricity to Kenya Power.
Marsabit county is touted as the best region for wind power production. Five firms including KenGen are set to build wind power plants in the county.
Generation hitches at the LTWP or transmission hiccups have in the recent past triggered national blackouts, underscoring the critical role of the plant in the country’s electricity supply.
For example, in 2023 the Ministry of Energy said that a faulty generator at the LTWP was to blame for a national blackout. The then Energy Cabinet Secretary, Davis Chirchir said the generator triggered a sudden drop which could not be filled by imports, leaving the country in darkness for hours.
The installed capacity of the plant is 310MW but generation is largely 300MW. This is mostly due to the intermittent nature of wind power which means that a range of weather factors hinder optimum electricity production.
The biggest annual net generation by LTWP was 1,659MWh which was recorded in 2022, when wind speeds averaged 11.1m/s –the highest so far since the plant started generating electricity seven years ago.
LTWP says that it has supplied over 9.5 billion kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity to the national grid since it became operational.
Wind is the third biggest source of electricity to the national grid and accounted for 16.3 percent or 521.9 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) of the total electricity that was generated in the three months to March this year.
Geothermal is the biggest source at 42.8 percent or 1,374.07GWh of the 3,208.75GWh locally generated in the period ahead of hydro at 24.8 percent (797.01GWh).
