Development of Electricity Sub Sector SDI: Case Study of KPLC, REA and KETRACO Kenya

Abstract

Energy is one of the most important ingredients that enable any country to realize major stride in development .Electricity is one of the leading form of energy. Electricity sub-sector in Kenya consists of several players who are responsible for regulation, generation, transmission, distribution and maintenance of electrical network in the country. The players deal with similar data sets in their operations but each operates independently in terms of collection and storage of both spatial and non-spatial data. This disconnected way of operation results to duplication of data collection efforts, duplication of projects, uninformed decision making and inconsistency in the data collected and stored. At the end of it all money and time usually go to waste. The main objective of this research was to develop a prototype for corporate spatial data infrastructure with the case study being Kenya Power and Lighting Company, Kenya Transmitting Company and Rural Electrification Authority to enhance spatial data sharing. The three organizations are involved in transmission and distribution of electricity in Kenya. The research started with establishing through questionnaires and interview if the need for data sharing existed among the three organizations and the data sets that each organization held. The research revealed that data sharing need existed and that data sharing would help in reducing duplication of projects, reducing the time taken for customers to be connected, save on resources used for duplicated data collection and also improve customer service quality. The methodology involved creating a personal data base for each organization which for the sake of research was assumed to be the organization’s Geographical information system .Then the geoportal was installed and the interface customized to fit the theme of the research “KENYA ELECTRICAL NETWORK SDI Geoportal”.In the geoportal users for all the organization were created and different roles assigned to them. Combination of tools were used which included Esri Geoportal server, Apache directory server and directory studio for establishing LDAP connection to the data base, Postgresql for the database, apache tomcat and ArcGIS. Finally, metadata for the sample data was created and published, the data was viewed on the geoportal after approval by the administrator. The system was configured such that only data published and approved by the administrator would be available on the geoportal to all users. Consultative meeting was held with the organizations stake holders and also questioners were used to establish the type of data each organisation held and if there was need for data sharing. The results were a working geoportal with all capabilities and interactive web map embedded on map viewer. In conclusion the research showed that there was need for data sharing among the three organizations. The main recommendation was that the model could be adopted by the whole energy sector and other related sector which could eventually to the realization of the Kenya National Spatial Data Infrastructure.