Gusts of opposition hit Kenyan wind farm project

Politics and policy

The plant aims to provide electrical power to 150,000 Kenyan homes by 2018. PHOTO | FILE 

By MAINA WARURU

In Summary

• Experts say the health fear is unfounded, as wind turbines do not produce electromagnetic radiation at levels that harm human health. Kenya's National Environmental Management authority has signed off on the project's environmental aspects.

A planned $144 million (Sh13.5 billion) wind farm project in Central Kenya has run into opposition from farmers who fear being forced to sell their land and allege that the wind turbines could cause health problems.

The Kenyan developers of the Kinangop Wind Park clean energy project say they will pay farmers for any land offered, and that no one will be required to sell their property.

They say they have also adhered to international standards in planning the 16-square-kilometre project at the foot of the Aberdare mountain range - and that Kenya needs the energy.

The plant aims to provide electrical power to 150,000 Kenyan homes by 2018.

But protests over the project have left one dead and led to the Nairobi-Western Kenya highway being blocked briefly in February. A lawsuit by farmers seeking to stop the project until their questions are answered has been filed in Kenya's courts, a protest leader said.

READ: Court halts Sh13bn wind power project

ALSO READ: General Electric now gets licence for 61MW Kinangop wind power farm

Local officials say fears about the project have been fanned by opposition politicians looking for political gain before 2017 general elections in Kenya.

"All the problems around this project are a result of incitement by (opposition) politicians taking advantage of people's ignorance about this project to excite emotions," Waithaka Mwangi, the governor of Nyandarua County, where the project is located, told a public rally in the area recently.

The protests have come as a surprise in power-short Kenya, where the government has made finding new ways to generate electricity one of its priorities.

"The government is here to assure you that this project is for the good of the whole country and is meant to help accelerate growth that we all so badly need," William Ruto, Kenya's deputy president, told placard-carrying protesters in February.

But farmers say they are not convinced, and fear they could eventually be forced to sell their rich agricultural land for the 61 megawatt project, which would be one of the largest wind power installations in Africa.