Kenya: Ngong Power Plant to Be Commissioned
Kengen will soon commission its expanded Ngong wind power plant to scale up contribution from renewable sources. The wind farm, which was put up in three phases near Nairobi, has been generating 5.5MW to the national grid. Speaking in Naivasha yesterday, Kengen CEO Albert Mugo did not give the exact date of the launch.
He said wind generation constitutes one per cent of total generation. The Ngong phase II project, which started in 2009, was financed by Spain.
The 13.6MW wind power project cost 20 million Euros (Sh2.2 billion). Mugo said the government is committed to lowering electricity prices through renewable energy sources.
Kenya's First Oil Export Expected in October 2022
Kenya's push to start oil production by 2017 will be delayed by at least five years going by the detailed design and construction timeline for the proposed crude oil pipeline connecting Uganda and local oil fields to Lamu.
The Toyota Tsusho design released yesterday shows that the flow of the first oil is expected in October 2022 at the earliest. This will come after the commissioning of the oil pipeline in the last quarter of 2020.
The design has dashed the hopes of the Kenya government, which had planned to start production by 2017. Tullow Oil Company also announced last month that the firm can only produce the first oil by 2020.
Kenya 'Telephone Farmers' Harvesting On Hi-Tech
Farmers in Kenya "are making use of a growing number of technologies and platforms to help them choose and manage their crops more efficiently," according to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report.
The report says a growing number of 'telephone farmers', who live in the city are making use of mobile devices to monitor effectively what goes on in their farms while working in the cities.
"Tech giant IBM's EZ-Farm project - currently being trialed in Kenya - is exploring how sophisticated data analytics can help farmers keep in touch with what is really happening on their out-of-town smallholdings," the report said.
Kenya tops EA bloc in impact investments
Kenya has become the top regional destination for investors putting money in impact investments that target both social and financial gains, a new study shows.
The report, which looked at regional impact investments made between 1998 and 2004, says Kenya accounted for nearly half of the $9.3 billion (Sh930 billion) invested.
The report, produced by the UK Department for International Development (DfID), the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and Nairobi-based Open Capital Advisors found Kenya had impact investments worth $4.2 billion (Sh420 billion) which is 46 per cent of the amount that went to the region.
