“It will happen again” – CS Davis Chirchir says as he explains cause of yesterday’s blackout

Davis Chirchir, the CS for Energy and Petroleum, disclosed on Monday that an overload between Kisumu and Muhoroni was the reason behind the national power outage that shook the nation on Sunday night.

The CS said in a press conference that the blackout was caused by the powerlines dropping due to overload.

CS Chirchir also disclosed that Kenya had issued a tender for the building of a new power line for Western Kenya after obtaining a loan from South Korea.

“We know the problem. We learnt it was an overload and we felt good because we can fix that problem very quickly unlike when it is a hit, ” according to Davis Chirchir.

In the last three months, there have been three nationwide power outages, which Kenya Power has described as “system disturbances.”

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

Adding;

“We have two major challenges: power generation due to lack of water and transition constraints because we have not invested as much.”

National power outage:

CS Davis Chirchir: We know where the problem is and we are addressing those challenges (lack of investment in the network for a long time). It’s bound to happen again, but we will look at serious maintenance pic.twitter.com/tslgC4I9e9

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) December 11, 2023