Tanzania is expected to close a deal with Nairobi that will see the neighbouring country use Kenya’s power transmission network to import up to 100 Megawatts (MW) electricity from Ethiopia.
Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) Managing Director John Mativo, said they expect top officials of Tanzania Electricity Supply Company Limited (Tanesco) in Nairobi for a meeting on Thursday next week, to finalise details on the deal.
Mr Mativo said the pending agreements will be approved by the Attorney-Generals of the two countries. The move comes after weeks-long trials where Ketraco evacuated up to 100 MW of hydro-power from Ethiopia to Tanzania, as part of testing the ability of the network to handle the load.
Tanesco is banking on this deal with the Ethiopia Electric Power (EEP) to end perennial outages that have plagued the northern part of Tanzania, underscoring the critical role of Ketraco in Tanzania’s efforts to stabilise electricity supply.
“I am hosting senior Tanesco management and staff on July 24 …. The test period was 100 percent successful and engineers are now using the data to run system analysis to confirm the next step for the 24-hour flow of electricity,” Mr Mativo told this publication.
Ketraco started evacuating the electricity on a trial basis in June this year, with an initial 50MW which was then doubled this month. This is in addition to the up to 200MW that Kenya ships from Ethiopia via the Ketraco network.
The duration of the Tanesco-EEP deal remains undisclosed but Tanzania considers it as a long-term agreement, in what will potentially earn Ketraco billions of shillings in wheeling charges annually.
Tanzania opted to import electricity from Ethiopia to its northern parts using Ketraco’s lines in a bid to lower system losses and costly power had it sourced the electricity from its south eastern region parts.
The Ethiopia-Tanzania electricity deal is relying on the 500 kilovolts (kV) high voltage line that runs from the Wolotya/Sodo dam in the horn of Africa economy to the Suswa substation in Kenya.
The electricity is then taken to Namanga via a 400-kV line and finally to Arusha through another line with similar capacity.
Tanzania is a vast country, making it one of the largest in Africa in terms of geographical size.
The route from the south eastern region to northern Tanzania is also longer and would lead to more losses.
