The African Development Bank (AfDB) will not fund a coal-fired power plant project in Kenya and said it does not have any plans to finance new coal plants in the future, senior officials told Reuters.
The lender published an environmental and social impact assessment in May for the Lamu project, which is a proposed 1,050-megawatt coal-fired thermal power station located on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, 20 km from Lamu’s islands and historic Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The project was halted by a local environmental tribunal in June. The National Environmental Tribunal said officials failed to conduct a thorough assessment of the plant’s impact on Lamu. It canceled the license issued by the National Environmental Management Authority and ordered developer Amu Power to undertake a new evaluation.
AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina told Reuters the bank took environmental concerns seriously and was focusing on renewable energy, adding that coal projects risked becoming “stranded assets” on the AfDB’s balance sheet.
