Kenya to build Africa's biggest wind farm

Kenya has announced plans to build a large-scale wind farm as part of attempts to harness sustainable energy and combat climate change.

The project, which is being hailed as Africa's biggest wind farm, will consist of around 365 giant wind turbines constructed in a desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya.

Costing an estimated £533 million, the wind farm will have a capacity of 300MW - one of the world's biggest proportions of wind energy to be fed into a national grid anywhere in the world.

When completed in 2012, the project will also have the capacity to provide a quarter of Kenya's current installed power.

Neighbouring country Tanzania has also commenced plans to generate around 100MW of power from two projects in the central Singida region, while Ethiopia has commissioned a 120MW farm in Tigray.

It is hoped the developments will spur other countries around the continent to take advantage of sustainable forms of energy and in the process, help to reduce the effects of climate change.

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, CO2 emissions in Africa reached 291 million metric tonnes of carbon in 2006.

Written by Aaron Akinyemi

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