Kenya launches $700m wind farm

Nairobi. Kenya on Friday formally launched Africa’s biggest wind power plant, a mammoth project in a gusty stretch of wilderness that already provides nearly a fifth of the country’s energy needs.

The $680 million (TSh1.54 trillion) ) scheme, a sprawling 365-turbine wind farm on the eastern shores of Lake Turkana, is delivering 310 megawatts of renewable power to the national grid of Kenya.

The Lake Turkana Wind Power project was beset with delays, and took nearly a decade to rise from the arid landscape 600 kilometres (372 miles) north of Nairobi. The turbines, scattered across Turkana’s stark lunar landscape and rocky hills, began to deliver their first electricity last September.

Today, their giant blades deliver 15 per cent of Kenya’s entire installed capacity, connected to the national grid through a 428-kilometre power line.

“Today, we again raise the bar for the continent as we unveil the single largest wind farm,” said President Uhuru Kenyatta, after touring the project. “Kenya is without a doubt on course to become a world leader in renewable energy.”

The project lies in a natural corridor dubbed “the windiest place on Earth,” and promises to harness this endless power at low cost. The nearly-50 metre turbines were engineered to handle the fierce gusts that tear through the ‘Turkana Corridor,’ a wind tunnel that generates optimal conditions year round.

The winds howling near constantly through the barren valley deliver double the load capacity enjoyed by similar projects in America and Europe.

“It is unprecedented. This is one of the most consistently windiest places in the world,” said Rizwan Fazal, the executive director of the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project.

A Herculean effort was needed to construct the behemoth wind farm in Kenya’s farthest extremes.

The windmills, manufactured by Danish company Vestas, had to be brought one-by-one overland from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. (AFP)