Bagasse Power Plant is no Flop, says Mumias Company

Last Updated 14 years ago by Kenya Engineer

The Mumias Bagasse Power plant has been facing critics terming it as a flop. The company however insists that the project is not and that it is in operation. According to Patrick Shilisia an employee of Mumias, the company is still in operation and power production is still on.“The power plant in the company is still in operation”, said Patrick Shilisia an official in the company.

He pointed out that the company is currently producing 34MW of which 26MW is sold to Kenya Power. The exported power is sold at six Euro cents while the rest is used by the company. The power production rate has however dropped from 35MW as it was initially set to produce. He pointed that the company is at times faced with shortage of cane and thus leading to under production of power.

The project was started in 2006 with the aim of satisfying the ever increasing demand for electricity in the country with clean alternative to the fossil-fuel based electricity component of the national grid.

It was sited elsewhere that company was planning on getting more bagasse for the plant since they were not producing enough.Mr.Shilisia however cleared this saying that the company was not sourcing any bagasse and that they were using their own.

Bagasse is a waste-product from cane after it has been processed which in other countries is used to produce power for the sugar factories as well as feed the national grid. Other than power production, the company also produces ethanol. They have two plants; the Muhoroni plant which is in operation and is producing 45 kilo litres of ethanol per day and another one at Mumias. The Mumias one is however under constructing and is expected to produce 80 kilo litres of ethanol per day. The Sh2.6 billion ethanol plant is set to be opened later this year.

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