![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/turkana-1024x683.jpg\")
It\nwas only in Europe, not Africa or anywhere else that wind farms were\nmushrooming propped up by State subsidies meant to promote green energy and attract\ninvestors into renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With\nthese preconceived headwinds against the idea of a wind farm, Wageningen brushed\noff the idea. As a coming-of-age strategic investor, he had been in this game\nlong enough. And he knew good investment projects if he saw one. A wind farm\nmarooned in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere, was definitely not one of\nthem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\nhad burnt his fingers before as an independent investor, long after he\nparachuted out of employment in search of bigger dreams. In hindsight, he admits\na good number of the dreams he was chasing were fly-by-night, not well thought\nthrough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPies\nin the sky,\u201d he chuckles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No\nwonder several deals went belly-up, crushing his ego. Luckily, as painful and\nhumiliating as it was, he managed to pick himself up each time he fell in a\ntrue fashion of human resilience. At some point, when he sunk to his nadir, all\nhe was left with was his shares on the stock market that he sold off to keep\nhim afloat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But\nsoon after, he got some pretty good breaks. This was after trying his hand at\nmaking hotel room key cards and plastic money (credit and debit cards), along\nwith waste management. He later divested from these businesses having bagged a\nfortune from selling them off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast-forward. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today,\nWageningen sits pretty as the founder and a board director of Lake Turkana Wind\nPower Ltd (LTWP) \u2013 the company behind the Turkana wind farm. The 310 MW plant,\nenough to power up to one million Kenyan households, started producing power just\nover a year ago in September 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nwind farm runs on 365 wind turbines, spread out over 40,000 acres of land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its\ninvestors comprise global heavyweights including UK firm Alydwych \u2013 the largest\nshareholder with a 30.7 percent stake. \nKP&P Africa, comprising a team of Dutch individual investors including\nthe founding fathers Wageningen and his friend Dolleman comes in second with a\n25.25 percent stake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other\ninvestors in the wind farm include Danish turbines maker Vestas (12.5 percent),\nDanish Climate Fund (Investment Fund for Developing Countries), KLP Norfund\nInvestments AS of Denmark and Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google\nhad earlier expressed interest in buying out Vestas\u2019 shareholding at an\nestimated cost of $40 million (Sh4 billion). The deal is yet to be closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The $700 million (Sh70 billion) wind farm, whose financing involved 11 global lenders, has cemented its place as the single largest private investment project in East Africa. As expected, the plant has bagged multiple global awards, attracting accolades as a game-changer in green energy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Never\nmind its humble origins on the shores of Lake Turkana where two dreamers, now\nconsidered founding fathers, once sat, sipping on their beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nwhat exactly changed after Wageningen rubbished the idea in 1997? What stirred\nthe change of heart and made him sell wind to investors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\nis actually considered as the man who sold wind to investors, having portrayed\nto them a picture of bounty harvest on the horizon if only they sowed their\nmoney in the desert land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\n1997, after laughing off the wind farm idea, he moved on with his life, minding\nhis own business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life\nhappened and the wheels making up days and months and years rolled on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\nin 2005, he had an epiphany. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ghosts of the idea that he thought were long dead started haunting him. For starters, the price of crude oil was on a steady climb, one that would later hit an all-time high of $147 a barrel in 2008, coinciding with the global financial meltdown. From $19 a barrel in 1997, the oil price tide had surged to $100\u2019s in barely 10 years. That, without a doubt, meant thermal power would cost a lot more, allowing other technologies to race from behind and play catch up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And wind was proving to be in the inner lane. Not only was it green energy but the cost of the technology was dropping too. With government subsidies in Europe, more investors had taken to wind technology, enabling it to scale and driving down production costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Equally, the green energy global campaign made the sector attractive and gathered steam in light of global warming, largely blamed on fossil fuel-based energy generation. Consequently, interest among development finance institutions (DFIs) to fund such green projects shot up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nthese considerations, Wageningen was back in the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nwas a challenge, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wageningen, alongside his sundowner friend, was snubbed by a wind expert who they wanted to fly in from the Netherlands to conduct pre-feasibility studies on viability of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Up\nto that point, every trick in their playbook had failed, despite having put all\ntheir persuasion tools to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHarry was adamant, saying there was no way\nwind power would work in Africa, without State subsidies. He just wouldn\u2019t\nbudge,\u201d said Wageningen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just\nas they thought that was it, Wageningen had his light bulb moment which would\nprove ingenious. Maybe it was lady luck smiling on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\nthings somehow started lining up, as if Mother Nature was rooting for the wind\nfarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\nconvinced the expert to come on a safari treat in the famous Maasai Mara and\nDiani beaches he had so much heard about,\u201d said Wageningen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe\nonly condition was that he had to fly to Turkana with us after visiting these\nplaces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking\nforward to a treat of a lifetime, the man finally agreed, gladly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\nproceeded to make arrangements for their visiting friend, including getting him\nair tickets and accommodation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nday that the three Dutchmen finally flew through the windy skies in northern\nKenya would mark a turning point for Kenya\u2019s wind power affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As\ntheir flight cut through the Turkana Corridor, hissing with low-level jet\nstream, the wind expert asked the pilot of the Cessna caravan to turn\ndirections and fly direct against the rushing winds. Never mind they were\ncruising at a height of 800 meters above the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silence\nenveloped the aircraft as it creaked and fought against the howling gales. Only\nthe pilot and the wind expert seemed calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\nnearly threw up as the turbulence shook us,\u201d said Wageningen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nwind expert, looking cool and nonchalant in the face of the turbulence,\nsilently took notes as he studied the anemometer recording wind speeds on the\naircraft\u2019s dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later\nthat evening, the trio shuffled over to their favourite spot on the shores of\nLake Turkana for sundowners, the sinking sun casting over their silhouettes. And\nfor the first time since that shaky afternoon in the aircraft the expert talked\nabout the winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\nhave never seen anything like this before. This is a wind developer\u2019s dream\ncome true. A paradise,\u201d the expert finally said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\nproceeded to advise them not to construct anything below 300MW, despite their\ninitial plan being a smaller plant of 50MW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The justification for a mega project was that a wind farm in Turkana wilderness would only make economic sense if it was large enough to justify the construction of support infrastructure with equally large costs such as a transmission line and substation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nthat affirmation, the next task for Wageningen was to seek regulatory approvals\nfor feasibility studies. He was also to secure State guarantees for a ready\nmarket with which to convince investors for funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s\nwhen he approached former Comptroller of State House Matere Keriri with the\nidea. Keriri was a good friend of his who served during former President Mwai\nKibaki\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nComptroller, in turn, set up a meeting with the then Ministry of Energy PS\nPatrick Nyoike to whom the dreamer sought to sell his wind dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was hesitancy in the beginning given that in 2005, Kenya\u2019s total power capacity was just 900 MW, and here we were, foreigners, asking approval to inject nearly half of that capacity from wind, an intermittent source,\u201d said the founder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse,\nNgong wind farm (25 MW), which had been constructed earlier, had proved\ninefficient. The government was, therefore, naturally opposed to yet another\nwind project that would turn out to be a white elephant project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But with the endorsement from State House Comptroller, the PS was somehow convinced and gave the project the green light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wageningen\nthen proceeded to ask for two government letters for risk mitigation, which he\nwas granted a week later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first was a letter of exclusivity covering three years to conduct feasibility studies in the identified area in Marsabit, northeast Kenya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nother was a letter of intent from government-owned Kenya Power committing that\nit would buy electricity from the wind farm for onward retail to customers upon\nconstruction, guaranteeing the project a ready market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nthese formal documents and a strong business case, the wind man now felt\nemboldened to approach investors and financiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then in 2014, the developers reached a financial close, after lots of paperwork and negotiations. That set in motion construction process with the wind farm starting to produce clean power in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nproject has, however, not been without challenges. The World Bank at some point\nduring negotiations pulled out of its financing commitment, citing inadequate\ndemand in Kenya for such a large project, along with a weak national grid\nsystem. Power generation also delayed following delays in construction of a 435km\ntransmission line that was only completed in September 2018 yet the wind plant\nwas ready a year earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe journey has been arduous. From nothing here to all these around us now, it\u2019s a miracle. It gives me pleasure to see the wind blades rolling and people having jobs, water flowing, children going to schools and roads being passable because of the dream that started with the fishing expedition,\u201d said an emotional Wageningen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\nrecalls the first days when he had to sleep in the open fields, with nothing\nmore than a mosquito net, the blue skies above twinkling with stars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\nwas romantic,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ever\na visionary, his dream now is to democratise ownership of power plants among\nKenyans through wind projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\nplans to mobilise Kenyans into pooling funds together, invest and own wind\nturbines, from which they could be earning from power sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The backstory of the 310-megawatt Lake Turkana Wind power plant in northern Kenya spans 21 years from the date the idea was first floated to when it started operating. It\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[205,709,943,1548],"class_list":["post-7525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-responsibility","tag-alydwych","tag-google","tag-lake-turkana-wind-power","tag-wind-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/carlo-1024x576.jpg\")