The Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) has dismissed allegations of being responsible for the nationwide blackout that hit the nation on Friday from 9.45 pm.
In a statement released on Saturday, August 26, the power plant refuted claims by Kenya Power that the outage occurred after losing 270 megawatts (MW) of power from the Lake Turkana Wind Power Plant (LTWP).
According to the country's main utility firm, the loss at the Turkana Wind plant triggered an imbalance in the power system and tripled all other main generation units and stations, leading to a total outage on the grid.
However, in a counter-statement, the Turkana Wind plant explained that it was forced to go offline and stop generation following an overvoltage situation in the national grid system.
"Our attention is drawn to various social media reports and a statement by Kenya Power in respect of the present power outage. LTWP wishes to assert that it has not caused the current power outage," read part of the statement.
It added its disconnection was necessitated by the need to avoid extreme damage that causes wind power plants to switch off automatically.
By the time it went off, LTWP was producing 270MW out of the national total of 1855MW. It added that other power generators in the system would immediately compensate for such interruption.
LTWP added that the plant was yet to be restored since it was forced to switch off on Friday evening.
It highlighted that there have been further interruptions and outages in the national grid system that are beyond its scope, as it was also affected by the technical hitches witnessed since Friday.
LTWP, however, assured that it was committed to working with other stakeholders in the industry to ensure the supply of low-cost renewable energy.
"We are doing whatever we can to support the immediate restoration of power to every consumer in the country," LTWP assured.
The power outage resulted in various disruptions in several critical sectors, including hospitals and airports.
A power outage at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) led to various passengers being stranded. Reports further alleged that the blackout severely affected critical hospital sections, especially Intensive Care Units and High Dependency Units.
Among Kenya Power's immediate interventions to restore electricity was seeking power from Seven Fork Hydro power stations in Tana River and Mirama Hills in Uganda.
