President Uhuru Kenyatta continues to spread his influence across the globe after one of the largest technology companies in the world expressed interest in investing in his project that emerged as the biggest in Africa.
American multinational technology company, Google, was reportedly impressed with Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project after learning that it was a successful effort aimed at steering the globe towards achieving green energy.
According to a Norwegian investment company Norfund which has a stake in the project, various multinationals expressed interest in investing (LTWP) with the most notable being Google whose parent company is Alphabet.
The Norfund report further detailed that the project was Kenya's single-largest private sector project and one of the most challenging power financing projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.
"Norfund was among the first investors, supporting both the development of the project and providing equity.
“Now that the plant is operational, more international investors, including Google, are looking to invest,” read the report in part.
Google is known for its numerous investments in clean and renewable energy.
“In 2017, we became the first company of our size to match our entire annual electricity consumption with renewable energy (and then we did it again in 2018),” Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai stated.
African Development Bank (AfDB) ranked LWTP, which is located in Marsabit County, as Africa's largest wind farm.
LTWP has an installed capacity of 310MW of clean, reliable, low-cost energy and 365 wind turbines with a capacity of 850kW each.
"The project will benefit Kenya by providing clean and affordable energy that will reduce the overall energy cost to end consumers," read a statement from AfDB in 2015.
2019 Climatescope Index released by the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF2019) ranked Kenya as the fifth country in the world in the race to achieve green energy sufficiency after it invested close to Ksh140 billion in 2018.
