wiredInUSA January 2019

Kenyan power plan

Integrated plant plans

Image: Seshagiri Rao

Image: Charles Keter

Indian manufacturer JSW Steel plans to integrate theAferpi rollingplant, in Italy, with its Indian businesses, including its recently purchased Monnet Ispat and Energy. JSW purchased the Aferpi plant in May 2018. The managing director of JSW Steel, Seshagiri Rao, said the company will send billet, smelted at Salem and Monnet Ispat plants in India, to Italy. Currently, Aferpi operates a rolling mill with a capacity of 1.3 million tons per year, which the company utilizes to produce rails. JSW has plans to use the rolling mills for the production of up to 700 tonnes of rebar and wire rod per year. Timings for a planned furnace at the site have yet to be decided.

Kenya’s government and the World Bank have launched the Kenya National Electrification Strategy (KNES), a plan for total electrification in the country by 2022. According to the World Bank, Kenya has rich renewable resources and is a global leader in the use of geothermal resources as a clean fuel for power generation. According to a recent multi-tier framework energy access survey report, Kenya has the highest electricity access rate in East Africa at 75 percent, both from on-grid and off-grid solutions, but 25 percent of the population still lack power. Charles Keter, cabinet secretary of the ministry of energy, said: “Tremendous achievement in scaling up connectivity has been made over the last few years. However, there was a need to come up with a new national electrification strategy to deal with the challenges of bringing the entire country under electrification in an economically viable manner.” It is expected that around $14.8 billion will be spent on power infrastructure in Kenya over the next five years.

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wiredInUSA - January 2019