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dam-l Kenya power rationing


Kenya's power rationing seen lasting six months
04:15 a.m. Aug 31, 1999 Eastern

NAIROBI, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Kenya may have to ration power for as
long as six months as electricity output is hampered by record water
shortages and an ageing infrastructure, energy officials warned on
Tuesday.

``There will be a level of rationing every day until March next year but the
really bad times will be September and December this year,'' Florence
Obura, spokeswoman of the Kenya Power and Lighting Company
(KPLC), told Reuters.

KPLC said it would not be until the start of seasonal long rains expected in
March that water levels would improve sufficiently to allow power
production to return to normal.

``Engineers at KenGen (the state-owned power generating firm) have told
us that water levels are at the lowest they have seen since the mid-1960s.
In fact our records have never shown such low resevoirs,'' she said.

Obura said KPLC would be forced into massive load shedding in
September and December as essential servicing of dilapidated generation
plants placed further pressure on Kenya's straining power supply.

KPLC said that power output was under pressure because of a failure to
develop new generation capacity in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

``There was no new generation capacity for 10 years after the building of
the Turkwell dam in about 1986 as a result of the aid embargo until the
arrival of the IPPs (independent power producers) in 1997,'' she said.

As part of efforts to liberalise the power sector, Kenya's government has
allowed the formation of IPPs, but only two are operational and they
account for only a small fraction of national output.

KPLC said most domestic power consumers would probably only
experience rationing in September and December but industry was likely to
suffer more.


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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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