High Grand Falls Multipurpose Reservoir
High Grand Falls multipurpose reservoir is one of the Flagship projects in the Kenya Vision 2030. The proposed dam site is on Tana River –the largest river in Kenya and will be located on the only site left on the river with the potential to store sufficient runoff (5 billion cubic meters) during the rainy seasons for flood control, river flow regulation and water supply for irrigation, domestic and industrial purposes. In its present state, Tana River is incapable of meeting any major future water demands.
The project site is located in Kenya, approx. 180Km North East of the Kenyan capital city-Nairobi. It is 50km downstream of the Kiambere Hydro Power Station along the River Tana in Kitui, Embu and Tharaka Nithi Counties. The dam axis crosses Tana River at GPS coordinates; 0016’41.14”S, 38004’32.90”E
Overall Objective: To promote sustainable development, enhanced revenue generation and food security.
The main objective of the project is to provide a large scale multipurpose reservoir on the Tana River to provide for water supply, irrigation development, river regulation, flood control and power generation in order to effectively contribute to regional and National socio-economic development. Other aspects to be considered include, inter and intra-basin water transfers, fisheries and downstream ecosystem conservation and sustainability.
Tana River is Kenya’s largest river, with a Catchment area of 100,000Km2 comprising regions of widely differing nature and development potential. The river basin is endowed with vast untapped natural resources. The Basin represents a major contributory sector to the Kenyan economy. It contains about 23% of the national population, a major proportion of the county’s rain fed agricultural production, and much of the greater part of its main potential for irrigation development. Furthermore, the Tana Basin provides the main source of hydroelectric power generation (65%). This capacity includes hydroelectricity from TARDA’s Masinga and Kiambere Multipurpose Dams of 40MW and 168MW respectively. Consequently, multipurpose dam’s development along the River Tana continue to be TARDA’s main focus for future land and Water based resource developments in the region.
The total funding requirement is estimated at US$1.85 billion. The Proposed project model is Built Operate and Transfer (BOT).
