SOLAR POWER DEVELOPMENT IN MASINGA, KIAMBERE AND TANA DELTA
Introduction
The Government of Kenya liberalized energy production in the country allowing private investors to generate power and feed in to the national grid through Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) with Kenya Power Company LPC. Owing to global climate change phenomenon, generation of the environmentally friendly green energy has captured global preference.
TARDA wishes to capitalize on this opportunity and produce solar energy in its vast tracts of land in Kiambere and Masinga region. This will be achieved by leasing the underutilized land to private investors to produce 40MW and 160MW of solar energy in Kiambere and Masinga respectively to meet the current national power demand and help reduce unit cost of electricity
The Authority considers two alternatives for solar power generation which entails;
- 40 MW Power generation in Kiambere and 120 MW in Masinga through an equity PPP arrangement whereby TARDA will procure an interested investor, agree on equity sharing, form a special purpose vehicle for the project development. The special purpose vehicle entity would then apply to the ministry of energy for EOI to generate solar power.
- The second alternative is for TARDA to procure investors interested in a common lease arrangement of TARDA land and undertake power generation privately.
The first option requires huge capital outlays which will require a partner to come on board. Secondly, the PPP registration process is lengthy and complex. The institution thus settled on common lease.
The project is in-line with, Global sustainable Development goals, National Vision 2030 goal of accessibility to electric power and contribute to the global climate change mitigation efforts. The PPP arrangement will utilize idle assets, increase availability of affordable renewable energy, empower local communities, allow private sector participation, assure food security, wealth creation in area and generate revenue for TARDA’s sustainability through land lease.
