President William Ruto's Cabinet resolved to review the national grid to prevent nationwide blackouts, similar to what was experienced over the weekend.
In a Cabinet dispatch released on Tuesday, August 29, it was noted that the top decision-making organ of the country was concerned over the power outage that lasted for over 12 hours beginning Friday, August 25.
Ruto's Cabinet regretted the incident, acknowledging that the blackout disrupted operations in parts of the country.
In the review, some of the challenges in the distribution system will be addressed even as the Cabinet seeks to identify the causes of the Friday - Saturday power blackout.
"Cabinet regretted the total electrical grid outage that led to a nationwide blackout on Saturday last week. Cabinet consequently directed the review of the power distribution system in the country, to ensure that the unfortunate occurrence shall not recur," read the dispatch in part.
Following the directive, the review will involve the analysis of power supplied from the substations all the way to systems connecting consumers, including poles and transformers.
Notably, the power outage has been blamed on the system fault experienced at the Lake Turkana Wind Power plant, which caused an imbalance in the nation's power system.
"The system demand at the time of the blackout was 1855.8 MW and therefore, a loss of approximately 15 per cent of generation was expected to cause a widespread power outage," read the Ministry of Energy statement.
However, the power plant refuted the allegations, noting that all their systems were okay at the time of the blackout that commenced last Friday at 5 pm.
"Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) wishes to assert that it has not caused the current power outage. LTWP was forced to go offline and stop generation following an overvoltage situation in the national grid system, which, to avoid extreme damage, caused the wind power plant to switch off automatically.
"The conclusion that the grid system overvoltage caused this issue is supported by preliminary reports and analysis undertaken by the relevant independent industry stakeholders," read the statement in part.
Meanwhile, Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir and Kenya Power boss Joseph Siror have been summoned to Parliament on Thursday, August 31, even as a section of leaders call for administrative action against those responsible for the outage.
Other leaders, including Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi, are pushing to have Kenyans compensated for the power loss that saw Kenyans lose millions in businesses and perishing of foodstuff at their homes.
Key infrastructure such as Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) also experienced a disruption in operations lasting almost two hours. This was attributed to a malfunctioning backup generator.
In other related developments, reports allege that the National Assembly's Energy Committee wants Kenyans to purchase tokens directly from independent power producers or Kenya Power rather than the latter alone.
The proposal is reportedly contained within a draft report being compiled by the MPs, and it is yet to be submitted to Parliament for review, or subjected to public participation.
