Kenya: Lake Turkana Wind Power signs financing agreements

After eight years in the pipeline, the 300MW Lake Turkana wind power project finally signed financing agreements worth €498m ($687m) on 24 March. The much-publicised project, described as the largest private investment in Kenyan history, has the support of a wide range of financiers, led by a revitalised African Development Bank (AfDB), but the time taken to reach financial close highlights the difficulty, even in private sector friendly Kenya, of developing a renewables project on this scale. The wind farm is expected to begin operating in early 2016,with full operation by 2019, and to produce power at Ksh9/kWh (€0.0752/kWh) and generate as much as €150m/yr in foreign exchange costs by reducing the need for fuel imports.