In order to address the country’s power issue, Kenya Power, the national electric utility firm, has asked Uganda for help in resuming imported electricity.
The system disturbance-induced outage, which happened on Friday and affected numerous areas of Kenya, was caused.
Passengers at Nairobi’s main airport, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), were detained in darkness for a long time as a result of the outage.
Images from the local media showed people navigating the dark airport with the use of their cell phones as torches.
After the electricity system failed, the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) stated that one of its backup generators was inoperable.
After consulting with airport management, Kipchumba Murkomen, the cabinet secretary for transport, apologized for the nationwide outage that had a negative impact on JKIA and vowed to outline steps to prevent a repeat.
Alex Gitari, the head of Kenya’s airports authority, was also fired by Murkomen.
He also pointed out that political intervention has resulted in a demoralized and disorderly labor force.
According to the authorities, widespread power shortages continue to exist over the bulk of the country despite the partial restoration of electricity in some areas.
According to Kenya Power, importing energy from Uganda would have been more practical and effective, but it wasn’t offered during the crisis.
They have nevertheless asked Uganda for help in fixing the more than 20-hour power outage.
Kenya Power separated the wires carrying the damaged electrical generators and used electricity from the Seven Fork Hydro power plants to restore the grid.
In contrast to importing energy from Uganda, which was not feasible at the time, this method took more time.
The Central and Eastern Regions saw the start of the restoration work, which then moved toward Nairobi.
Kenya Power is also nearing completion of the integration of power from the Olkaria complex, where the majority of geothermal facilities are located, in order to restore supplies to areas that are still without power.
The power outage was caused by a loss of 270MW of generation from the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant (LTWP), according to the state-backed utility company, which has a monopoly in Kenya. This caused an imbalance in the power system, which led to the shutdown of other major generation units and stations.
Kenya Power apologizes for any inconvenience caused and thanks its devoted clients for their endurance.
