Wind Farm at Lake Turkana Recorded A High Capacity Factor

Posted on : Friday , 3rd September 2021

Earlier this year, the Lake Turkana Wind Power farm, consisting of 365 turbines, recorded its highest capacity factor rating.

In March 2021, the Lake Turkana Wind Power plant's consortium announced that it had recorded a "good month" having achieved an average capacity factor of 75.8 per cent, "the highest in the last 31 months that we have been in operation."

The capacity factor is a unit less measurement of how much electricity a generation plant is producing over in a given period. It is a ratio of how much power the generator is producing, to how much power it would be producing at maximum.

Each of the 365 wind turbines has a capacity of 850 kW, and a high voltage substation.

According to Lake Turkana Wind Power’s chief technical officer, Wellington Otieno, the high capacity factor was achievable owing to strong winds, and good maintenance of the wind farm.

"Lake Turkana Wind Power is situated in one among the best locations on the whole planet for the onshore wind production. The high wind speeds brought about by the tunnel formed between Mt. Nyiro and Mt. Kulal means that our capacity factor is much higher than the rest of the world. Other factors such as the availability of the resource used for generation, and downtime of components for maintenance, or normal wear and tear leading to breakdown also come into play." said Wellington Otieno.

A higher capacity factor means that the Lake Turkana Wind Power plant is supplying more renewable energy produced from wind to the Kenyan national grid, and reducing the dependence on polluting and expensive diesel power.

The Lake Turkana Wind Power wind farm is connected to the Kenyan national grid through a 435 km associated transmission line. The transmission network was constructed by the Government of Kenya through the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company.