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Expensive power generators are making a comeback in a prolonged drought
Tuesday, June 13, 2023
Cabinet Secretary for Energy Davies Churchir tours the Masinga Dam in Embu Province to assess the situation following the prolonged dry weather. file image | George Monin | NMG
Expensive thermal power generators have made a huge comeback on the national grid after overtaking wind and hydro to become the second largest sources of electricity, reversing a five-year trend of cutting out diesel plants blamed for high energy bills.
a The daily business Analysis of official data shows that Kenya tapped 166.86 GWh of power from diesel-fired generators in March, contributing the second largest share of the energy mix in nearly five years after geothermal sources at 509.36 GWh.
is reading: Wind inundates water in Kenya’s monthly energy mix
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that the uptake of costly thermal energy was the highest in a year as the country sought to fill the void left by wind and hydro dams whose supplies were damaged by adverse weather conditions.
A severe drought said to be the worst in 40 years lowered water levels at the country’s hydroelectric power plants such as the Seven Forks Dam on the Tana River and Sondu-Miriu in western Kenya in the first quarter of the year.
This sent grid hydropower supplies to the lowest levels of production in nearly a decade and a half.
KNBS data put the hydroelectric share just before the start of the long rainy season at 125.98 GWh in March and 112.91 GWh in February, the lowest share since the last months of 2009 when the country suffered another devastating drought.
A gigawatt is equivalent to one million units of electricity.
The increasing tapping into thermoelectricity was not unexpected as Cabinet Minister for Energy Davies Churchill warned the government’s options had narrowed.
“We have water level problems and we may have to push other forms of power generation to meet the country’s energy demand, but the only challenge we may face is that power will be very expensive,” Mr Chirchir warned after visiting the Masinga Dam, the largest hydroelectric reservoir in the country. .
The situation has been exacerbated by declining supplies of wind power, due in part to an unresolved outage on the Loiyangalani-Suswa transmission power line that has occasionally been severed from the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant in Marsabit County.
The share of wind power fell to 152.35 GWh in March from a recent monthly high of 237.49 GWh last October.
Oversupply from thermal plants translates into higher bills because power plants must be compensated for the electricity they supply to the grid even if it is not used.
Thermal power plants use diesel generators, which makes them more affordable than other energy sources.
Conservative estimates showed thermal plants charging Kenya Power, the state-run quasi-monopolist distributor, as much as $0.20 (Sh 27.87 at an average prevailing dollar exchange rate of Sh139.35) per unit compared to wind power’s rate of $0.08 (Sh11.48). ) Per unit.
Electricity is sold in US dollars, which means that Kenyan households and businesses spend more as the value of the shilling drops.
Fuel cost charges — the fees Kenya Power uses to pay thermal plants — and compensation for exchange rate fluctuations were Sh8.30 per unit from Sh6.59 in the previous month, according to data from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
“Our energy costs are more expensive on average than other countries we compete with. One of the main reasons is the arrangements the government has had for a long time in terms of thermal power or emergency power,” Anthony Mwangi, CEO of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, told The daily business in an interview.
“With these contracts, you either use it or you pay it. So even though our grid is leading in green power generation, which is some of the highest in the world, we are still stuck on all the contracts.”
Kenya Power is turning to thermal plants to meet demand and ensure stable supply at peak times, but low rains hurting hydropower levels have led to increased reliance on transmissions from thermal plants.
is reading: Wind power generation approaches water levels
Hydro was for years the largest single source of electricity in the national energy mix until 2015 when it lost access to geothermal power due to a combination of less rain and increased investments in clean energy.
The increasing exploitation of dirty thermal energy is hurting Kenya’s plan to transition to 100 percent clean and affordable sources by 2030.
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