16 January 2014, Cairo -Kenya plans to have a nuclear power plant in the next 15 years to meet the high demand for electricity as projected in the Vision 2030 development roadmap, the new KenGen chief executive Albert Mugo has said.
He said the nuclear energy board headed by Ochilo Ayako is already preparing the country for the immense power demand in the near future.
“From the resources we have, we may not be able to meet over 30,000MW of power demand in 2030 and the board is making preparations so that we can have a nuclear plant in 10 to 15 years,” Mugo said during his formal introduction at KenGen’s headquarters at Stima Plaza.
He has replaced MD Eddy Njoroge who retired last year.
Mugo said apart from the development of nuclear energy, KenGen is undertaking various projects to ensure the government achieves the 5,000MW plus power plan in three years. The company is currently implementing a 208MW geothermal power project which will be commissioned at the end of this year.
“We have a strategy of accelerating power production from geothermal and wind, so as to cut production from fuel which is very expensive,” he said.
KenGen’s director of regulatory affairs, Simon Ngure said the company is seeking to raise Sh30 billion from investors to fund various projects to meet its power production targets.
“We want to do a 100MW wind power project in Northern Meru to add to the 20MW currently coming from Ngong wind farm, thus we are raising debt and equity from lenders and shareholders to get capital to develop projects,” Ngure said.
He added that the company is planning to raise its share capital from the current 2.2 billion shares in the market to 10 billion shares.
– The Star