Page 6 - AfrElec Week 25 2021

AfrElec HYDRO AfrElec

KenGen makes hydro plans

more climate resilient

KENYA KENYA’S KenGen is set to modify its hydro- within a short period , which does not give the
power projects in a bid to make them resilient to soil time to take in more water and the catchment
climate change. area becomes saturated, hence the dams get full
The modifications include increasing the and spill. “When dams are put in place, they have
number of turbines or the storage capacity of the two functions; there is a third one; adaptation
dams, Kenya’s the Standard reported. to climate change but the primary function is
The company, which is responsible for up to hydropower generation and flooding,” he said.
75% of electricity consumed in the country, says KenGen is therefore modifying Masinga
some of the adjustments to hydropower pro- Dam to increase its storage but will not add
jects are meant to make the dams adapt to the hydropower machines. “Once we increase stor-
changes. age which we are targeting to modify the spillway
The adjustments, said the company’s Chief by 1.5m, this will lead us to increase (storage) by
Energy Planner Willis Ochieng’, have been around 180 million cubic metres. It will then
informed by the unpredictable rain patterns, increase energy output,” said Ochieng’.
which the listed energy firm depends on for He added that the company had to adapt to
hydropower production. climate change.
Ochieng explained that Kenya experiences “The rainfall patterns are becoming erratic.
bimodal weather patterns because of its position You may get rainfall for only a week or even two
in the equator, which has the country recording weeks, and they are gone; not like before when
two rainfall and two dry seasons. These are long we could tell that the rains start from this time
rains from March to May and short ones from and end at this period,” he said.
October to December. “So for you to ensure you have adequate water
In between the country experiences two dry is to have storage. The larger the storage you have,
seasons: hot dry in January and February, and the better, which is why dams are used now for
wet dry season in June to September. climate change adaptation,” he added.
“These seasons dictate how we run our Ochieng’ said the modifications would be
hydropower plants. They rely on water; we rely determined by the original design of the dams
on the rainfall period to be able to fill our dams and the levels of water in the facilities, whose data
so that during the dry period we utilise the water is collected every 30 minutes and analysed daily
harvested throughout the wet period to take us for any opportunity for adjustments.
through the dry period until the rains resume,” “Capacity of dams can be increased. You can
he said. add some turbines to generate more and KenGen
However, while this has been the pattern, due has done some, including Kindaruma, which
to climatic change, this is not always the pattern. used to have two and recently we added a third
Rains do come at times with high intensity for unit to increase the output,” said Ochieng.™
a short time. This then generates a lot of water

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 25 24•June•2021