KAA says cable vandalism to blame for power outage

By Macharia Kamau

A sequence of power outages that cumulatively lasted more than five hours at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport early last week was due to cable vandalism.

The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) said the vandalism of a high voltage underground cable had caused the initial outage on the mainline that feeds into the airport, while back-up lines that are supposed to kick in automatically failed because of lack of synchronisation between the airport’s power system, and that of Kenya Power.

The airport has several backup support systems – including a second independent power supply line and four back up generators – that all failed to restore power in what is supposed to be the regional air transit hub.

Feeding into the fault

"The airport’s system was not harmonised with the Kenya Power’s, and when it came back online after the initial black out, there was a fault and the back up lines kept feeding into the fault and tripped," Stephen Gichuki KAA managing director.

"And so was the case with the back up generators."

Left exposed

"Kenya Power’s and our systems have since been harmonised and we believe the system can take care of such a scenario in case it happens again."

However, Gichuki and technical team were unable to explain how KAA had left electricity cables feeding into the airport exposed to the extent of being susceptible to vandals, and only said the airport’s sub-station was outside the security controlled areas of JKIA.

Airlines that use JKIA have criticised KAA over the incident, saying the Authority should ensure that there is stability in power supply.