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Workers walk near power lines in Loiyangalani district, Kenya, September 4 2018. Picture: REUTERS/THOMAS MUKOYA
Workers walk near power lines in Loiyangalani district, Kenya, September 4 2018. Picture: REUTERS/THOMAS MUKOYA

Power was restored to parts of Kenya after a nationwide blackout lasting several hours which was thought to have been caused by a fault on a transmission line, electricity distributor Kenya Power said on Saturday.

“Initial reports indicate that the outage was caused by a fault that occurred on the Suswa-Loyangalani high-voltage power transmission line,” Kenya Power said in a statement.

The power supply was restored to parts of Eldoret, Kisumu and Nakuru, the distributor said. Electricity had also returned to at least one part of the capital Nairobi, according to a Reuters journalist.

Kenya Power is the country’s sole electricity distributor and the bulk of its power comes from Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen), which is the main producer.

Meanwhile in SA, Eskom announced stage 4 load-shedding is back until Tuesday morning after generating unit breakdowns at three power stations and an additional two units being taken offline for repairs at a fourth.

“Thereafter, load-shedding will be reduced [on Tuesday] to stage 3 until 4pm. Stage 4 will then be implemented from 4pm until 5am on Wednesday morning,” the power utility said on Sunday afternoon. This pattern of stages 3 and 4 will be “repeated until further notice”.

“Over the past 24 hours, a generating unit each at Camden, Duvha, Majuba and two units at Kriel power station suffered breakdowns and were taken offline for repairs,” said Eskom. The return to service of a generating unit each at Hendrina, Medupi and Tutuka power stations was delayed.  

Repairs to damaged towers from Cahora Bassa were, in addition, taking longer than anticipated. A generating unit each at Duvha and Kriel power stations were returned to service during this period. Breakdowns on Sunday took down 17,340MW of generating capacity while 5,654MW of generating capacity was undergoing planned maintenance. 

“We urge all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly to help alleviate the pressure on the power system,” the power utility said. /With TimesLIVE 

Reuters

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