Kenyan President William Ruto has announced ambitious plans to construct a massive nuclear power plant in Siaya County, targeting a generation capacity of between 2,000MW and 5,000MW by 2034.
Speaking to residents in Kisumu during his four-day development tour of the Nyanza region, President Ruto emphasized that the multi-gigawatt nuclear facility is a cornerstone of his administration’s long-term strategy to accelerate industrialization, meet soaring domestic energy demands, and connect new regions directly to the national grid.
“We have agreed that here in Siaya, we will generate between 2,000MW and 5,000MW using nuclear power, so that Nyanza becomes one of the regions producing electricity for supply to the rest of Kenya,” Ruto stated.
The announcement marks a significant step forward in Kenya’s push to diversify its energy matrix away from geothermal, hydro, and thermal sources. Preparatory phases for the country’s maiden nuclear project have steadily advanced, with the government eyeing an official groundbreaking in 2027 and a target commissioning window of 2034.
The Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA), working in tandem with the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) and various international partners, has been laying the regulatory and technical groundwork. To ensure adherence to global safety and operational benchmarks, Kenya has continued to seek technical cooperation and capacity-building support from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
President Ruto contextualized the nuclear initiative within a broader national target to more than triple Kenya’s installed electricity generation capacity. While current capacity sits at approximately 3,300MW, the administration aims to scale output to at least 10,000MW over the next five to seven years. Approximately 3,000MW of that expanded capacity is expected to be fed directly by the nuclear program.
Beyond high-capacity generation, the President underscored ongoing rural electrification projects and last-mile connections across Nyanza, arguing that reliable, affordable power is vital to bringing previously underserved regions into the fold of commercial and agricultural production.
The energy policy announcements were coupled with a robust defense of his administration’s broader economic record. President Ruto maintained that aggressive fiscal reforms have successfully stabilized an economy previously burdened by heavy public debt. He pointed to falling inflation rates, a stabilized macroeconomic environment, and foreign exchange reserves that he claimed have doubled since 2022. Citing these economic markers, Ruto asserted that Kenya has climbed to become the sixth-largest economy on the African continent.
As the Nyanza development tour continues, the administration faces the dual task of maintaining macroeconomic stability while mobilizing the massive capital investments required to bring East Africa’s first commercial nuclear power facility from blueprint to reality by the mid-2030s.
