The Unseen Highways Powering Vision 2030

There is a lot of excitement about the Thika Super Highway that is nearing completion and changing forever our perceptions about roads engineering. Of course Kenyans being the wishful lot we are cannot help falsely imagine that the new super wide and smooth will also improve our horrible driving skills.

While the Superhighway was being created by the Kenyan visionaries, African Development Bank finances, Indian designers and Chinese Contractors, many other highways have also been coming up away from the public's eye. Which ones are these and where are they?

I am talking about the national electricity grid. In December, 2008, the government started a new parastatal called Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Ltd. (KETRACO), see website here . The company which is 100%  owned by the Ministries of Finance and Energy was set up along with Geothermal Development Company (GDC) to fast track the expansion of the transmission network and exploration of geothermal power sources, respectively.

KETRACO was established to develop new high voltage electricity transmission infrastructure that will form the backbone of the National Transmission Grid, in line with Kenya Vision 2030.

Its core business is to plan, design, build and maintain new electricity transmission lines and associated substations. These new lines will include 132kV, 220kV, 400kV and 500kV High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC).

The Company will construct over 4,000 km. of high voltage transmission infrastructure comprising of lines, switch gears and sub-stations across the country in the next 3-4 years. This will open up geographical areas without access to the national grid, enhance capacity for evacuating power from planned generating plants and build inter-connectors to facilitate regional power trade with neighboring countries.

Already new transmission lines have been installed in Kamburu-Meru, Chemosit-Kisii, Rabai-Galu and currently two major projects are underway in Mombasa-Nairobi and Rabai-Lamu transmission lines. 

So the next time you are admiring Thika Super Highway and how it will improve your life, remember that there are a few more highways that are out of sight, but will also impact your lives positively by ensuring you get cheap power, reliable power and also opening up parts of our nation that have never known what electricity is.