Kenya Faces Another Major Blackout Amid Infrastructure Woes

Kenya experienced its second significant blackout in a week, affecting 70% of customers before power was restored. This outage happened due to a tripped transmission line at a substation, followed by another trip on the Ethiopia-Kenya high voltage line. Energy Minister Opiyo Wandayi attributed the cause to inadequate infrastructure investment.

Kenya witnessed its second major blackout in a week on Friday, with power restored to 70% of affected customers by late afternoon, according to Kenya Power and the Energy Minister.

The outage stemmed from a tripped transmission line at a substation, followed by another failure on the Ethiopia-Kenya high voltage transmission line, Energy Minister Opiyo Wandayi explained. He noted the loss of 488MW represented 27.3% of total generation, leading to a cascade failure and partial grid collapse.

'What we are witnessing today has built up over time and is a result of sub-optimal investment in infrastructure,' Wandayi said. The blackout, affecting several regions, followed another on August 30 and adds to a series of power outages over the past year, including one plunging Nairobi's main airport into darkness.