NAIROBI, Feb. 3 (HANA)--Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki held talks with the Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi where the two leaders agreed to inter-connect the two nations’ power grids
A statement issued in Nairobi from the presidency said Kibaki and the Ethiopian Premier instructed the ministers of energy from the two countries to expedite the inter-connection of the power grids of the respective countries.
The inter-connection of the power grids of the two countries is expected to enable Kenya access additional electricity to fix energy supply shortage that has been experienced in recent years as a result of erratic weather patterns and rapid economic growth.
The two leaders, who met on the sidelines of the AU summit in Addis Ababa, also revisited the issue of the Southern Corridor which comprises road link, railway line and oil pipeline stretching from the proposed Port of Lamu along the Kenyan coast to Ethiopia and Sudan.
“In underlining the need to speed up the construction of the Southern corridor, the two leaders noted that the corridor is the long term solution to the transport problems between Kenya and Ethiopia,” the statement said.
The corridor, they further noted, will also facilitate the development of the Northern Kenya as well as the Southern part of Ethiopia.
During the talks, the two leaders also dwelt on the bilateral relations between the two countries and reaffirmed their commitment to further enhance cooperation in various areas of development.
The two leaders singled out the need to link the two countries via fibre optic cable as this will further facilitate development cooperation.
President Kibaki and Prime Minister Zenawi expressed their appreciation on the progress being made in this regard, noting that telecommunication companies of the two countries are working closely to achieve the desired results.
The development came as seven Eastern African countries will in the next four years be able to jointly produce power and have their supplies connected.
Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP) chairman Engineer Joseph Njoroge said on Monday that the member countries were working towards harnessing the vast energy resources that exist in the region to improve the integration of their electricity markets.
“Electricity is a very versatile product that requires very miniature logistics to transport. Interconnection between different countries is very critical for us to be able to realize our dreams of energy trading,” said Njoroge who’s also the Kenya Power Lighting Company Managing Director.
Utility firms from Burundi, DRC, Egypt, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sudan are the members of the organization that was formed in February 2005 in Ethiopia to secure reliable power supply for their countries by benefiting from economies of scale.
Although Uganda, Tanzania and Djibouti are not members of the power pool, they have indicated their willingness to join and help to optimise the usage of available energy resources in the region.
There are four power pools in the African continent which aim to interconnect different countries with grid lines to enable them to share their resources.
The interconnection project entails the construction of high voltage transmission lines between countries and this has seen some several lines put up between the various neighbours including those that are not members of the EAPP. Enditem
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