Kenya on Course for $5 Billion Nuclear Plant to Power Industry
KENYA -
Kenya’s nuclear agency submitted impact studies for a $5 billion power plant, and said it’s on course to build and start operating the facility in about seven years.
The government plans to expand its nuclear-power capacity fourfold by 2035, the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency said in a report on the National Environment Management Authority’s website. The document is set for public scrutiny before the environmental watchdog can approve it, and pave the way for the project to continue.
President Uhuru Kenyatta wants to ramp up installed generation capacity from 2,712 megawatts as of April to boost manufacturing in East Africa’s largest economy. Kenya expects peak demand to top 22,000 megawatts by 2031, partly due to industrial expansion, a component in Kenyatta’s Big Four Agenda. The other three are improving farming, health care and housing.
The nuclear agency is assessing technologies “to identify the ideal reactor for the country,” it said in the report.
A site in Tana River County, near the Kenyan coast was preferred after studies across three regions, according to the report. The plant will be developed with a concessionaire under a build, operate and transfer model.
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LONDON - Senior officials with Uzbekistan’s state-run power company have said work has begun on building power cables to Afghanistan that will enable them to increase exports by 70 per cent.
Uzbekenergo chief executive Ulugbek Mustafayev said in a press conference on March 24 that construction of the Afghan section of the 260-kilometer Surkhan-Pul-e-Khumri line will start in June.
The Asian Development Bank has pledged $70 million toward the final expected $150 million bill of the project. Another $32 million will come from Uzbekistan.
Mustafayev said the transmission line would give Uzbekistan the option of exporting up to 24 million kilowatt hours to…
