Kenyans ready for dark days ahead
Kenyans are getting ready for dark days ahead as the National Power distributor Kenya Power and Lighting Company begins rationing power supply from 27th July.
The rationing is a culmination of erratic power supply that has been going on in different parts of the country especially in towns.
Managing Director KPLC Joseph Njoroge, said Wednesday that the generation of power reserve mergin has been quite insufficient compared to ever rising national power demand.
Njoroge however once again blamed the weather for the power ration which was last practiced in the late 1990s.
"KPLC does not generate power, the company just sells power to customers and instead of letting customers suffer erratic outages, it would be better to caution them that at certain period of time there will interruptions." Said Njoroge.
The power rationing will mostly affect industrial areas and areas adjacent to industrial hubs.
Njoroge stated that the rationing had been necessitated by shortfall of between 70MW and 90MW.
Manufacturers have meanwhile threatened to raise prizes of products by 40 percent due to costs of production that will be occasioned by rationing.
Betty Maina, the Chief Executive Officer of Kenya Association of Manufacturers said Wednesday that the burden of production was likely to go high and the ripple effect could be felt by the consumers.
Kenya Power and Lighting Company is the only one that distributes power in the country. Minister of finance Uhuru Kenyatta allocated Kshs.16 billion for development of geothermal energy in the 2011/2012 budget presentation.
The geothermal energy has been touted as reliable and not affected by weather conditions as opposed to hydropower.
The Geothermal Development Company (GDC) headed by Dr. Silas Simiyu is exploring geothermal energy in various parts of the country including at the world renowned Menengai crater.
The company has completed drilling two wells at the crater with the first one promising to generate up to 10 megawatts.
"If the trend goes on like this, then we shall generate power sooner than expected and we shall reduce the wells from the targeted 120 to fewer wells." Said Dr Simiyu in a recent interview with The Earth Times.
Top Image Credit: © Liaurinko
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