Davis Chirchir, the Energy Cabinet Secretary, has warned of another statewide blackout if more investment is not directed toward improving electricity supplies across the country.

According to Chirchir, the country’s power supply cables are overburdened, which worsens the transmission of energy to Kenyan households.

Chirchir stated on Monday that the statewide power loss was caused by a transmission limitation on Sunday at the Kisumu-Muhoroni power line.

The CS said that there was an overload at the power line which “felt threatened and it tripped” and “cascaded down to the rest of the country”.

“…There was sudden demand and the line is dimensioned to carry 80Mw. When the line went down it was carrying 120Mw and suddenly there was a demand for an additional 20Mw on that line,” he said.

The power trip at the affected line caused a dramatic increase in power flow on the Juja-Lesos-Muhoroni connection, resulting in an overload at the Olkaria transformer, which he referred to as a system limitation.

“The power restorations started immediately and by 1 am 60% of affected households had their power restored,” he said.

Chirchir acknowledged that the administration is dealing with power supply issues and added that a number of mitigations have been presented to assist manage the country’s chronic power outages.

He stated that the government intends to establish an alternate route from Olkaria-Narok-Bomet-Awendo to boost electricity transmission to Western Kenya.

Chirchir stated that the project construction is still in the tender stage and would be finished in around 20 months thanks to funding from South Korea and the Africa Development Bank.

There are further proposals to enhance supply stations at Lessos, Kimuka in Kikuyu, and Malaa (which will service the Nairobi north line).

He also stated that the government will expedite the deployment of battery energy storage devices, which will aid in voltage stability.

Chirchir also mentioned the possibility of forming Private-Public Partnerships, as part of the networks would be created with private funds.

“We are now bringing in the PPP to build some of the networks. It will relieve KETRACO from looking for funding from government and having the challenges we have had,” he said.

Meanwhile, preparations are being developed to offload power loads from limited power lines in order to reduce power outages during the long haul operation.

“We know where the problem is and we are addressing those challenges. It’s bound to happen again but we will look at serious maintenance. The least of it is lack of investment in the network for a long time.”

The outage on Sunday was the third, following the first on August 25 and the second on November 11.

During the November 11 outage, it took more than 12 hours to restore electricity to most of the country.

Murkomen apologized in August after Kenya Power published a brief statement reporting a “system disturbance leading to loss of bulk power supply,” after travelers were stuck at JKIA.