Isiolo and Meru gain a second transmission route as the Nanyuki line is energised.

A mine, smelter or industrial plant drawing power around Isiolo, Meru or Laikipia now sits behind two transmission routes rather than one. Kenya's state transmission company said on 27 August 2026 that it had energised a new 132kV line running from Nanyuki to Isiolo, built to serve the upper eastern part of the country and the Mount Kenya counties around it.

The scope is modest by national standards and specific in its effect: 72 km of single-circuit line at 132kV, a new substation at Isiolo, and expansion works at the existing Nanyuki substation. About 4.2 km of the route near Nanyuki was laid as underground cable rather than strung overhead, because of security limits around the air base at Laikipia.

One effect was measurable on the day. The company said at the energisation that voltage at the Nanyuki substation rose from 123kV to 130kV as soon as the line was switched in.

Its stated case for the line is redundancy: a second feed for the towns along the corridor, the transmission infrastructure the LAPSSET Corridor requires, and a path onto the grid for renewable generation built later in the upper east and north. An independent power producer weighing a project there therefore has an evacuation route that exists rather than one on a drawing board. KCB Bank Belgium and Kenya's government put up the funding, and the underground section drew on arrangements with the African Development Bank. The company also expects to energise the next line in its programme, the 132kV link from Nanyuki to Rumuruti, about three weeks after this one.

For large power users, a second route into a region changes how a single-circuit outage plays out more than it changes the capacity available at the meter. It is worth asking the utility what firm capacity the new Isiolo substation can deliver to a site of your size, and whether your own connection is fed from the strengthened corridor or still from the older single path. If a connection application is in train, check whether the commissioning of the next line in the programme moves the date you have been given, and what voltage you should expect at night and in the high-demand months now that the busbar sits higher.