Nuclear Power Plant in Kenya: Kenya has announced plans to build Sh. 540 billion nuclear power plant. The plant will be constructed on a site in Tana River County over the next seven years with funding from private investors.
“The financing aspect of the Nuclear Power Plant is among the plans underway with a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) being the most preferred financing agreement with the concessionaire that shall come on board,” the Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board (KNEB) says that the plant with an initial capacity of 1,000 megawatt (Mw) said.
KNEB further added that plant would be constructed through a concessionaire. This revelation was done in a regulatory filing with the National Environment Management Authority (Nema)
According to a report that appeared in the Business Daily on Wednesday, the government looks to expand the plant’s capacity fourfold by 2035 under a build, operate and transfer (BOT) model. The KNEB plan will be subjected to public scrutiny before the environmental watchdog can approve it and pave the way for the project to continue.
“Kenya views nuclear power both as a long-term solution to high fuel costs — incurred during times of drought when diesel generators are used — and an effective way to cut carbon emissions from the power generating sector. The KNEB said private funding for the nuclear plant would ease the burden on Kenya’s strained public coffers. The estimated cost of the nuclear plant is nearly half the government’s annual tax collections,” the report said.
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According to KNEB, Tana River is the most preferred location since it is not prone to earthquakes. Other sites under consideration were in the Lake Victoria and Lake Turkana basins.
“The proposed sites are endowed with large water masses, which are crucial in cooling nuke reactors. The project would involve the building of a ‘third-generation’ plant with pressurised water reactors. Nuclear reactors require reliable sources of water for steam condensation, service water, emergency core cooling system and other functions,” the report said.
Currently, South Africa is the only country in Africa with a nuclear power plant near Cape Town.
“The nuclear plant would be Kenya’s biggest and most expensive project since the Chinese-built standard gauge railway. The KNEB has running memoranda of understanding with China, Russia, South Korea and Slovakia for capacity building for the nuclear plant,” the report in the BD added.
However, KNEB also issued a caveat on the project. “Kenya is at a risk due to the expected investment of Sh. 500 billion ($5 billion) into the Nuclear Power Plant if the current issues of run-away corruption are not curtailed, which may lead to massive public economic loss due to possible implementation delays and overruns as experienced in other mega projects in the country,” says the agency.
