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{
"id": 1398861,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398861/?format=api",
"text_counter": 216,
"type": "heading",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "NATION-WIDE POWER OUTAGE IN AUGUST AND NOVEMBER, 2023"
},
{
"id": 1398862,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398862/?format=api",
"text_counter": 217,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Chute",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13583,
"legal_name": "Chute Mohamed Said",
"slug": "chute-mohamed-said"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I beg to ask the Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum the following Question- (1) Which entities were responsible for the disruptions of power supply in most parts of the country on Saturday, 11th November, 2023, and the nationwide power blackout that occurred on Friday, 25th August, 2023. Could the Cabinet Secretary state any actions taken against the entities? (2) Could the Cabinet Secretary provide a comprehensive report on the losses incurred by businesses because of the power disruptions, while clarifying whether the affected businesses will be compensated? (3) What measures has the Government put in place to ensure the stability of the national electricity grid to prevent the recurrence of such power disruptions?"
},
{
"id": 1398863,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398863/?format=api",
"text_counter": 218,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wakili Sigei",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Cabinet Secretary, you may proceed to respond to the questions by Sen. Chute."
},
{
"id": 1398864,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398864/?format=api",
"text_counter": 219,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker. Thank you, Sen. Chute, for that question that touches on the outage that was experienced and disruption of power supply experienced in most part of the country on that Saturday 11th November, 2023 and the nationwide blackout that occurred on August Friday 2023 and actions we have taken against the agencies. Hon. Senators, let me respond to the status of the investigation into the nationwide power outage on those two dates. At the time when we experienced that national outage, the system demand at the time of that occurrence was way below the peak demand. There was enough power on the grid, as we were only taking in 1,855 megawatts within the generation mix of hydro, which at that time was delivering 355 megawatts. Geothermal at that time was delivering 817 megawatts. Thermal was delivering 244 megawatts. The wind was at 356 megawatts. We did not have any imports from Uganda. We were feeding them two megawatts because we do a power exchange with Uganda. At this particular time, we were pushing two megawatts to Uganda. We were getting 100 megawatts from Ethiopia through what we call Electrical Engineering Portal (EEP). The first event related to the outage was recorded by our system at the National Control Centre in Dandora, the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, at 21 hours, 45 minutes, 09 seconds, 187 milliseconds. I stress that because we record events to milliseconds or any occurrence because sometimes, we want to see the sequence of events, what happened before which event. That outage was associated with what we call a dynamic reactive power compensation system at Lake Turkana Wind Power in Loyangalani. The analysis of the event revealed"
},
{
"id": 1398865,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398865/?format=api",
"text_counter": 220,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1398866,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398866/?format=api",
"text_counter": 221,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": "that the compensation unit was responding to a dip. The system seemed to have seen a dip in voltage. Though the dip occurred at almost the same time with a sub-transmission line, a 66 kV line at Athi River substation, which was recorded at 21 hours, 45 minutes, 09 seconds, and 277 milliseconds, you will see that the dip occurred at about 100 milliseconds later in our Athi River substation. It is, however, unusual for such faults to affect the grid, owing to the fact that the lines are at downstream in terms of being the last mile side of consumption. Therefore, we do not expect that unusual fault to affect the grid, because the lines are, like I said, downstream of the grid. The resultant impact on the transmission grid should be minimal. Examination of the waveforms and the events in the SCADA system shows that Lake Turkana Wind Project or power plant tripped in 140 milliseconds when the voltage dip was slightly above 80 per cent of the normal 220 voltage, contrary to conditions stipulated in the grid code, which require the system to hold for at least two seconds for a fault right through. The fault can be allowed to go through if the system is to hold for two seconds. However, this reactive power reacted, and in less than 140 milliseconds, the system shut down. That caused a challenge, which cascaded down and ran us into that challenge. That was the problem. On the 11th of November, 2023, Kenya Transmission National Grid with an installed capacity generation of 2,806 megawatts, with geothermal at that time of 852, hydros 810, thermal 506, wind 426 megawatts and solar 212 megawatts. The national grid is interconnected with Uganda through a 132kv double circuit line between Lessos and Tororo substation, and Ethiopia's electric power is through a 500kv high voltage DC line linking Suswa. On that particular day, this was the second partial blackout on the 11th November, 2023, at 19 hours 57 minutes, the country experienced a partial outage of the electric power system. The system demand before the outage, again, was approximately 22,057 megawatts distributed as shown in the table on the statement, which I have signed and given to the House. Hydros 553, geothermal 800 megawatts, thermal 234, wind 334, imports 136, totaling 2057 megawatts. You will note again that was way below the generation capacity of the country or the peak power that we have seen before, so it was nothing to do with the shortage of power generation. The power supply disturbance was triggered by a trip on 80-megawatt transformers at Olkaria Two and Olkaria One and additional unit substations. Olkaria-Naivasha line 132 line also tripped at the same time. The cost was attributed to a failed jumper cable at Olkaria 1 132k substation. The substation was commissioned in 1992 and reconstruction work, in addition to upgrading of the generator, is due to commence this year. The loss of the 170 megawatts and Naivasha 132 kilovolts line resulted in increased power flow from Olkaria to Kibos 220 KV line and Suswa, Nairobi North 220 KV line. The shift in the power flows caused an overload in one of the very weak links we have in the West of Kenya, Kisumu Muhoroni, which is the very reason why we are accelerating the construction of Narok- Bomet."
},
{
"id": 1398867,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398867/?format=api",
"text_counter": 222,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1398868,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398868/?format=api",
"text_counter": 223,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The Kisumu-Muhoroni 132 KV line and the two 200 megawatt transformers at Dandora 220 substation, Kisumu- Muhoroni 132 line then tripped on an overload further, overloading the transformers at Dandora which tripped. With a trip of these critical lines and cascade trip of Juja, Naivasha, Kibos, Kisumu 132 to Moroni, the Western part of the country was kind of isolated. It was islanded and we then saw that partial challenge. This led to several imbalances in the system. When the system tried to balance itself in a very short time that imbalance really in terms of the cascading of the challenges caused that challenge of partial outage. As I said, this led to several imbalances in the system leading to the cascade trip of generators in Olkaria, Nairobi causing loss of Ethiopia transmission and Uganda imports and the loss of generation led to that partial collapse of the system. However, the Mt. Kenya grid system was islanded with generators at Kamburu and Gitaru running and tied to the customers connected to this part of the grid. You will note that because it was a partial outage, we were able to restore power within three and a half hours and so the restoration activities began at 2011 hours on the same day and supply to the customers was finally restored fully by 1.39 hours in the morning with sufficient generations availed. Hon. Senators, joint technical and operational teams in the energy sector have continuously reviewed such major disturbances with resultant improvements, and recommendations, some of which have been implemented. These endeavors and efforts have continued to reduce the frequency and severity of system disturbances, especially those that would cascade and lead to nationwide grid collapse despite its vulnerability. System defense mechanisms such as effective under-frequency load shedding are some of the strategies we have employed today and the provision of emergency overload capacity for critical transmission lines has been employed and is working well. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, what you will possibly notice for a while is that we have not seen some of these systems. What I am saying is, when we have an overload, we would rather pull down some of the feeders or de-load a network and not push power and overload the system that would cascade and cause a nationwide or the kind of partial blackout that we have been talking about. What we do, and you will possibly notice this more in the area of Bomet because of Muhoroni-Chemosit. When there is an overload in that line, because that line is built on a capacity of about 89 megawatts, and many times it will be carrying up to 120 or 140 megawatts in Muhoroni-Chemosit down to Sotik, all the way to Awendo. Sometimes we have to de-load the line by pulling some of the customers down so that we do not overload the country. So, some of the black holes that you see sometimes are what we are calling here ‘effective under frequency load shedding’ to manage the capacity of the system, so that in a way we are islanding, we are isolating the problem to that small area by bringing it down and, therefore, sustaining the rest of the country. However, the proposed key projects especially alternative transmission lines for evacuating power from key generation points, which are pending, pose a major challenge in operating the network optimally. We have attached a comprehensive list of recommended, critical grid enhancement projects, which are in various stages of implementation in the annex."
},
{
"id": 1398869,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398869/?format=api",
"text_counter": 224,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1398870,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398870/?format=api",
"text_counter": 225,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Davis Chirchir",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, allow me at this point to point to the fact that the energy sector in Kenya is almost fully unbundled to the extent that the generation, transmission, and the off taker operate independently with their balance sheet and systems, KETRACO today is still supported on the government balance sheet. Therefore, we are working very quickly employing the Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework to see how KETRACO, with the limited government resources, is able to work through the PPP framework to attract private investors to build a transmission system, remove the constraints on the overloaded circuits and be able to forestall this challenge. Several circuits today are undergoing evaluation through the PPP framework so that KETRACO can leverage private investment and be able to forestall some of these challenges. Some of the actions are that the Ministry is addressing the root cause of grid instability and is formulating lasting solutions to comprehensively address the weaknesses. One of them is what I just mentioned which is through the PPP framework. Further, the Government, together with our development partners, is working on a grid reinforcement plan to ensure the frequent blackouts experienced lately do not become a persistent matter. The government is committed to having a reliable, sustainable, and resilient national grid system, and to an extent where, as I said, generation seems to be doing well. The off taking through Kenya Power Company and what we are doing to strengthen their balance sheet, you have lately realized that we have allowed Kenya Power minority shareholders to participate in the structure of corporate governance by bringing in four independent directors to represent the interest of the 49.9 percent shares, which are routed through the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The Government side today is represented by five members. Those are some of the reforms which we are working through with Kenya Power to address governance issues and address the power losses from the current 22 per cent. We have given ourselves 16 per cent in the next three years to address the issue of the balance sheet so that the Kenya Power balance sheet can be strong enough to go out there and do what it needs to do for the country in assuring us of reliable, sustainable, resilient on the national grid to what I have said in the PPP framework. This is so that we do not have to only come to Parliament to look for resources to build the infrastructure nationally. It can be built by the private sector, leveraging on the electrons that flow on that network. The way we toll our road highways, we should be able to toll the lines and get return on investment on the PPP framework. I thank you."
}
]
}