Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) earned Sh11.05 billion as sales revenues for supplying electricity to Kenya power in the 10 months to June last year, pointing to the strong prospects of the mega project.
The earnings, disclosed in Kenya Power books, were the third largest power purchase costs incurred by the utility firm, after Kenya Electricity Generating Company (Sh36.89 billion) and OrPower 4 Inc (Sh12.58 billion).
LTWP started supplying power to the grid in September 2018, meaning that the earnings are for 10 months, raising prospects that the project could offer stiff competition to KenGen.
The project supplied 1,124-gigawatt hours (GWh) to the national grid during the review period, in contrast with KenGen’s 8,276 GWh.
LTWP executive director Rizwan Fazal had in the past interview said the management expects the project to break even in 2024 — about six and half years after starting electricity generation.
For the first six years, LTWP will sell the energy at 8.529 Euro cents (Sh11) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) then start charging at 7.684 euro cents (Sh9.91) per kWh.
The difference is to recover €81 million (Sh10.45 billion) balance as a penalty on the government for delaying the transmission line project.
Kenya incurred a €127 million (Sh14.5 billion at the then prevailing exchange rates) penalty for breaching the timelines set for completion of the 428-kilometre high-voltage power line from Marsabit to Suswa substation in Narok.
In a 2017 deal, Kenya committed to pay €46 million (Sh5.7 billion at the time) of the penalty in a lump sum, while €81 million was to be cleared in six years through a minor tariff increase.