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Kenya Hopes To Benefit From Obama’s Power Africa

Kenya Hopes To Benefit From Obama’s Power Africa

From Standard Digtal

Kenya is eyeing tens of billions of energy sector funding from the United States-backed Power Africa initiative that has more than $26 billion to tap from. The figure was raised last week after the US-Africa Summit from $7 billion that had been set earlier by US President Barack Obama when he launched the ambitious power program a year ago.

The initiative targets Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Liberia. Power Africa has an ambitious goal of adding more than 10,000 megawatts (MW) of cleaner, more efficient energy generation capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. This increased capacity will make it possible to provide electricity access to 20 million new households and commercial entities in sub-Saharan Africa with on-grid, small-scale, and off-grid solutions. ]Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir said yesterday a number of power projects are earmarked for support under the Power Africa initiative. Some of these projects include the 300MW Turkana Wind power project, the 61MW Kinangop wind project, 100MW Kipeto wind power and another 10MW biomass project. There is an additional 300MW of geothermal power to be developed from Lake Bogoria. “We came home with a bag of goodies,” Chirchir said, adding that Kenya is ready to compete with five other countries for the funding.

 

Written by PETER KIRAGU /Read more at Standard Digtal