A $144m Kenyan wind power project backed by a joint venture between Macquarie Group and Old Mutual Investment Group has been cancelled due to opposition from local landowners and farmers, developer Kinangop Wind Park said, Reuters reported.
Kinangop’s 60.8MW project in Nyandarua County in central Kenya was due to come online by mid-2015 but progress was hobbled by disputes with residents over compensation for land. Local farmers opposed the project, saying they would be forced to sell their land, while turbines could cause health problems, an allegation that the developer denied.
“Due to the consequent material delay, project funds have been depleted and the project can no longer be completed by the shareholders,” the statement read, AllAfrica reported.
The project had aimed to provide electricity to an estimated 150,000 Kenyan homes by 2018. Its failure is a setback for the East African nation’s drive to increase its power generation capacity by 5,000 MW in the five years to end-2017.
