NOVEMBER 2015www.endeavourmagazine.com

INSPIRED BY YOUR SUCCESS

Kenya PowerPowering People For Better Lives

Power doesn’t come without time and effort; the electricity that we take for granted is sourced through the hard work of the professionals working tirelessly in this industry. Kenya has faced many issues in the quest to develop its power generation and the future is heady with potential. The future of Kenya Power is one filled with light and we liaised with Ben Chumo regarding what his company is doing.

WRITTEN BY JACK SLATER

POWERING PEOPLE FOR BETTER LIVES

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KENYA POWERWWW.KPLC.CO.KE00254 703070707

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“It’s easy to forget that power generation relies on working machinery,” Ben indicates, “People take their power for granted but the machinery needs to be updated and

maintained.”The current interconnected system capacity stands at 1,764

MW which includes 821 MW of hydro, 565 MW of medium speed diesel plants, 54 MW Gas Turbine, 293 MW of geothermal, 26 MW cogeneration, 5.1 MW of wind and 30 MW of rental diesel power. The effective interconnected capacity under normal hydrology is 1,707 MW. The Interconnected system peak demand is 1,468 MW as recorded on 10th June 2014.

What this means is that hydropower provides close to half of the generation capacity. However, the catchment areas for seven forks have continued to receive depressed rainfall since June 2013, which has had a detrimental effect on the amount of hydropower generated.

Ben reveals that comparing the rainfall received at Masinga during the months of January to April, 513.00mm and 309.20mm were received, in total, during 2013 and 2014 respectively translating to 142% and 86% of long term average (360.11mm). The latter was poorly distributed and this resulted into poor inflows in the hydropower dams. Turkwel and Sondu catchments received normal rainfall up to October 2013 after which the rainfall became depressed and has remained as such.

“Reduced rainfall across the country means that the system has had reduced hydropower capacity in the seven forks and western Kenya,” Ben explains. Meanwhile, power demand from a

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Supply and demand are keywords in power generation and knowing how much power can be generated safely and efficiently is very important. In addition, a power system requires sufficient reserve capacity to cover planned and unplanned outages, with part of this reserve being online, as in active, which is referred to as spinning reserve, so as to be able to cover up for any sudden loss of generation capacity due to a machine or a transmission outage.

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burgeoning country has been on the rise, “Growth of eight and a half percent peak demand and over nine percent energy demand was recorded just last year. The unavailability of adequate reserve capacity has therefore made the system vulnerable so that any sudden loss of generation capacity results in adverse system instability and consequent loss of load, which then affects our electricity customers.”

Location is also an issue. When the generators are too far from load centresm this can severely affect the available voltages and this is why Nairobi and West Kenya experience poor voltages as they are supplied from distant locations, “The low voltages lead to load shedding in order to avoid associated system collapse and poor quality of power to customers,”

This has become the main hurdle to overcome as the system is experiencing a capacity deficit of up to 35MW during the evening peak due to the low hydrology and also intermittent supply from Mumias Sugar cogeneration plant, which has shortages in bagasse fuel.

There are a few possible initiatives that could help. For example, to alleviate the impact of the capacity shortfalls in the interim, Kenya Power has engaged Uganda Electricity Transmission

Company Limited and has solicited power support of 50MW (up from the previous 30 MW support).

“This has significantly reduced the shortfall by 20 megawatts, leaving a net shortfall of only 15 megawatts during the evening peak,” Ben says, “This shortfall necessitates load management during the peak in order to maintain the rest of the system in a stable condition and the area affected by the load management due to the 15 megawatts deficiency is Nairobi industrial area. Some areas in West Kenya are also affected by the load management measures instituted to cater for the low voltages during peak hours.”

Now, ongoing capacity addition projects are to be commissioned between June and September 2014 that will mitigate the current shortfall, while the committed generation projects will ensure sufficient system capacity is sustained in the future. The Kenyan Government has also initiated a plan for 5,098 MW of new power generation capacity to be developed in a 40-month period between 2013 and 2017.

To find a solution, first Kenya Power had to fully understand the magnitude of the problem. The Kenyan power transmission system is made up of four main electrical areas Nairobi, Mount Kenya, Coastal and Westerly regions. Of these four, Nairobi is the main

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load centre, making up approximately 55% of the demand and all the regions are weakly connected with 220/132 kV lines, which were sufficient when they were first installed, 50 years ago, but have been almost redundant and inefficient since the 1990s.

According to Ben, in the existing power system many of the substations are supplied through single radial 220 kV and 132kV circuits, thus breaching the N-1 system security criteria, which requires an alternative line for every existing one, capable of taking up the entire load carried by the initial line, in order to avoid system instability.

With this in mind, the system faces challenges whenever lines carrying considerable generation suffer unplanned outage and no alternative lines are available to take up the lost transmission capacity. Such situations easily lead to partial or total system collapse, which may seem like a merely irksome inconvenience for people at home and in the office, but can spell disaster for hospitals and businesses relying on power to stay operational.

A number of projects are being implemented to address these transmission constraints, which include such things as the formation of 220 kV Nairobi Ring and NairobiCoast 400/220 kV ring at Mt. Kenya, a series of new substations being planned, a Mombasa-

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“Major rehabilitation and refurbishment works on distribution substations are underway in the country to reduce supply interruptions and to provide contingencies. Several projects have been completed in the recent past, across the country, to address the problem.”

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Nairobi Coast 400 kV transmission line, Suswa-Nairobi 400 kV transmission line and reactive power compensation equipment installed in Embakasi, Juja Road, Ruaraka and Nairobi North.

The distribution system is also being restored, having deteriorated as a result of historical challenges dating back to the period when the country experienced funding challenges under donor embargos. This lack of financing led to underinvestment in the distribution system, which ordinarily requires replacement of the aging parts and continual expansion to meet demand and to also have in place adequate system redundancies for improved security and reliability.

“Major rehabilitation and refurbishment works on distribution substations are underway in the country to reduce supply interruptions and to provide contingencies,” Ben highlights, “Several projects have been completed in the recent past, across the country, to address the problem.”

Planned across the system, they include a range of development and repair projects such as the strengthening of the low, medium and high voltage lines, the introduction of a smart grid to improve transmission and sub-transmission substations and a replacement of ordinary (air break) switches with high capacity (load break) switches, which is currently in progress as is the automation of equipment at primary substations for faster supply restoration.

“Some of the disruption experience comes in the form of theft,” Ben explains, “People steal the wiring to resell the metal and to stop this we’re instigating a project to underground the overhead HV, MV + LV network, to eliminate third party interference with the lines.”

This will coincide with a refurbishment of substations and enhancement of capacity, reactive power compensation in west, coast and Mt. Kenya regions and the trace clearance both on MV and LV Lines that will increase the total cover to 45700km.

“Not all the projects are glamourous or seemingly technical,” Ben says, “We can’t overlook anything when it comes to the distribution of power and some of the projects are more a case of maintenance, such as the replacement of 74,000 wooden poles with concrete main lines and refurbishing the LV lines, correcting lines that may have sagged and load balancing in 6,415 substations!”

Kenya Power has identified 100 installations and the process of designing alternative supplies is in progress to come up with

dedicated feeders that will create redundancy and hence, minimise interruptions.

“Presently, 66 designs estimated at 1,116M have been completed,” Ben tells us.

While present distribution transformation capacity has about 1,500Mva spare capacity, this capacity will be upgraded in anticipation of the additional 5000MW and ongoing schemes presently being executed by Kenya Power will bridge this gap, while at the same time creating shorter feeders and de-loading lines that are presently overloaded

Some of the projects are focussed externally, for example, targeting the 100 top and essential customers to be focussed on during outages, this triage approach has been taken so that important customers such as hospitals, schools, municipal buildings and the largest manufacturers can be given priority over those customers that can realistically do without for a period.

“This is obviously not a preferred situation,” Ben emphases, “But it is necessary.”

In addition to all the above, which is ongoing and intensive, Kenya Power has initiated a specific project named Operation Boresha Stima Viwandani for industrial customers.

BORESHA STIMA VIWANDANI involves the intensive maintenance that is presently in progress and has involved focused shutdowns, such as the ones recently undertaken in industrial areas in Nairobi and then employing all teams to work on that area that has been shut down for the day to optimise the time and ensure all works are completed.

Finally, while it cannot be argued that there are obstacles ahead, the future is still bright for Kenya Power and with such focusses being placed on the development and refurbishment of baseline features that have been neglected in the past, the scale of future projects can only grow.

“It’s good to be the light at the end of the tunnel,” Ben concludes.

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