Energy CS Opiyo Wandayi has outlined the reasons behind the widespread power outages experienced in Nairobi and its environs during the March heavy rains. The explanation points to a combination of flooding and storm-related damage to critical electricity infrastructure.
Flooding emerged as a primary cause of the outages.
According to Wandayi, substations located in areas where surrounding built environments have constrained or obstructed natural water paths became highly vulnerable.
Storm water overflowed into these substations, leading to significant disruptions. The substations affected included Nairobi West, Industrial Area, Ridgeways, Kimati, and Syokimau
These substations play a key role in electricity distribution. They supply power to several areas including South C, Langata Road, Upper Hill, South B, Industrial Area, Ridgeways, Jogoo road, Mlolongo, Mavoko and Katani areas.
The flooding caused extensive technical damage. Water ingress into above-ground medium voltage switchgear resulted in total failure of equipment. In addition, electrical cables were damaged, further compounding the outages and slowing restoration efforts.
Storm Damage from Fallen Trees Disrupts Power Lines
Beyond flooding, the heavy rains were accompanied by strong winds that caused trees growing near power lines to fall.
These incidents led to damage across both high and low voltage power lines as well as transformers. The destruction of this infrastructure triggered widespread and prolonged outages in several parts of Nairobi.
Areas most affected by fallen trees included Dagorethi North, Langata, Westlands and Ngong. The scale of damage in these regions required extensive repair work before electricity supply could be restored.
Extended Outage Duration Due to Network Reconstruction
CS Wandayi indicated that the severity of the damage meant that full reconstruction of sections of the power network was necessary before customers could be reconnected.
As a result, the duration of outages ranged between 12 hours and 72 hours depending on the extent of the damage in each area.
To mitigate the impact on consumers, response teams moved to address the faults caused by the heavy rains as urgently as possible. This included repairing damaged infrastructure where feasible and transferring affected customers to alternative power sources.
Additional short-term measures were also implemented to maintain connectivity during the restoration period.
