Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP), which is planning a 300 MW wind development in Kenya, has more than enough pledges for the 560-million euro project but is yet to confirm lenders.

Chris Staubo, a director of LTWP says the company has received offers totaling 780 million euros. 

Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems will supply nearly 360 turbines and Kenya's monopoly electricity distributor, KenGen, will purchase the power at a feed-in tariff of 7.22 euro cents.

'From the pledges that we have, we are oversubscribed. We are waiting to have another lenders conference when we actually select four or five parties out of the nine people to actually form the debt consortium,' says Staubo.

In march, LTWP's chairman said the shareholding structure was 51% for London-based energy Aldwych, 19% for South Africa's Industrical Development Corporation and a 30% stake for KP&P, the original owners. 

Once complete, the project situated in northwest Kenya will be Africa's biggest wind farm. It will provide about a quarter of Kenya's current electricity needs.

Kenya has the potential to tap several forms of renewable energy sources such as solar and geothermal, but heavily depends on hydroelectricity.

Source: Reuters