NAIROBI, Kenya, May 9 – Kenya Power now says a snapped tower conductor on Olkaria-Nairobi power evacuation line could be the cause of a nationwide outage reported on Saturday morning.
Kenya Power Network Manager Charles Mwaura in a statement Saturday afternoon said the fault which occurred near Kiambu town led to power loss on the power line straining the output from other power generators thus causing an outage.
“An electricity conductor came off the support insulators and clashed on the tower,” said Mwaura.
The utility firm, however, said it is still conducting an investigation to conclusively identify the hitch that caused the power outage even as it assured of resumption of power supply.
“Investigations are still ongoing to conclusively establish the cause of the nationwide power outage which occurred this morning,” reads the power statement.
Kenyans woke up to a nationwide power outage on Saturday with Kenya Power’s statement at the time attributing the situation to a system disturbance on the transmission network.
The outage came at a time the energy ministry had announced an upsurge in water levels in key hydroelectricity dams as a result of heavy rains and flooding in parts of the country.
Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter Wednesday said Masinga which supports power production at the Masinga Hydroelectric Power Station had exceeded its reservoir capacity reaching a historical 1,057.9 meters above the sea level.
“The maximum reservoir is 1,056.5. You can see it is above and therefore it is a serious issue. We’re telling the people who are downstream in Garissa all the way to Tana River to move,” he said.
Kenya Power has managed to restore power supply in some parts of the country, with restoration efforts in other areas underway.
“We have managed to restore power supply to most parts of the country. However, the Coastal cities of Malindi and Lamu remain without electricity. Our technical teams are making every effort to restore normalcy,” the utility firm said in an update issued on Saturday afternoon.
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