We did not cause the nationwide blackout – Lake Turkana Wind Power clarifies
The recent nationwide power outage that has left many parts of Kenya in darkness has prompted Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) to issue a clarifying statement denying any responsibility for the disruption.
The power outage, which began on Friday, August 25, 2023, has caused concerns among citizens and has led to speculations about its origin.
In a press statement released on August 26 today, LTWP addressed the speculations and social media reports that had pointed fingers at them.
According to the statement, LTWP was forced to cease its power generation due to an overvoltage situation in the national grid system.
“Lake Turkana Wind Power 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, to avoid extreme damage,” the statement read.
This automatic shutdown mechanism is designed to prevent extreme damage to the wind power plant.
The statement explained, “At the time LTWP was forced to switch off, it was producing 270MW out of a national total of 1855MW (14.6%). The large drop in generation output, following the grid system instability, resulted in a situation that national power supply was interrupted. Typically, this interruption would be immediately compensated for by other power generators in the system.”
Since LTWP was forced to switch off on Friday evening, the plant has not yet been restored.
“During this period there have been further interruptions and outages in the national grid system, which also remain beyond the scope of LTWP and prevent us from bringing the plant back online until these have been resolved,” the statement concluded.
LTWP reiterated its unwavering commitment to collaborating with all industry stakeholders to ensure a consistent supply of affordable renewable energy.
The nationwide power outage has caused inconvenience to households and businesses and raised questions about the overall stability and reliability of Kenya’s power grid system.
In a statement Kenya Power shed light on the nationwide blackout saying it originated from the loss of 270MW generation at the LTWP Plant.
“The loss triggered an imbalance in the power system and tripped all other main generation units and stations, leading to a total outage on the grid. While there are situations where a plant could trip, our technical teams are analyzing the data from the protection relays to establish the root cause of the trip which caused a cascade failure of the system,” read the Kenya Power statement.