Ethiopia starts power purchase deal with Kenya

In the coming weeks frequent meetings are expected to be carried out between senior officials and experts from Ethiopia and Kenya electric authorities so as to conclude a power purchase deal as Ethiopia concludes successful line tests.
A week ago a delegation led by Eyob Tekalegn, State Minister of Finance, visited Kenya and met relevant government officials to discuss the issue.
The Ethiopian delegation which includes senior executives of such as Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) CEO is expected to travel to Nairobi in the coming week as part of the agreement finalization.
Moges Mekonnen, Public Relations head of EEP, said that there are remaining points from both sides that are to be finalized in the upcoming negotiation.
He told Capital that the remaining issues are expected to be finalized in the coming frequent discussion in Nairobi and Addis Ababa.
“Our delegation led by senior staff will travel to Kenya mid February and the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company officials and technical staff will come here before the end of this month,” he explained.
According to the Public Relations Head, issues like rate and power supply of kw/h and other technical and project statues are the areas that will be cleared and concluded for agreement.
“We believe that the power sales agreement will be included in a very near future,” Moges added.
He added that EEP has already finalized the transmission line project and even successfully conducted testing, “we are waiting the accomplishment from the Kenyan side to conduct commission.”
The commissioning work includes the power transmission thus the line in Kenya ought to be finalized.
“Last September on their visit to Ethiopia they assured that the project will be fully accomplished in few months time so we hope that the commissioning work will carry out in the near future,” Moges added.
The transmission line project that commenced about a decade ago is expected to export up to 400MW power with the transmission line having a capacity to take 2,000 MW electric power.
In related developments, EEP has disclosed that the terrorist group which expanded its aggression southwards to Amhara and Afar region has damaged 1.6 billion birr worth of power infrastructures.
Moges said that the damage that occurred on EEP’s infrastructure and the cost to carry out temporary maintenance will set them back 1.64 billion birr. He explained that the amount only calculates the damage on existed infrastructures and would be higher when taking into account the domino effect. “If we included the damage that occurred on ongoing project it will be very high,” he explained.
About 53.3 percent of heavy transmission lines have been robed and damaged at the areas covered by the aggression.
He said that 29.5 million birr have been allocated as a cost for material to undertake the maintenance, “but it is not inclusive of the operation cost for the maintenance.”
He underlined that comprehensive rehabilitation work is crucial to undertake the regular service in the area.