# Wind power plans for Hargeisa reported in 2013 but not built

> Somaliland Sun reported a draft electricity bill and a planned 100kW wind pilot. No subsequent construction, cost or enactment is established.

- By: Editorial Team, Somali Construction Review (https://somaliconstructionreview.com/about)
- Published: 1 October 2026
- Format: News story (reported from one named public source)
- Publication: Somali Construction Review (https://somaliconstructionreview.com)
- Subject: Infrastructure and Services
- Tags: utilities, electrical-work, building-services
- Web version: https://somaliconstructionreview.com/blog/somaliland-sun-wind-power-plans-2013

## Key points

- On 2013-04-16 Somaliland Sun reported a draft electricity bill and a five-turbine, 100kW pilot windfarm planned for Somaliland.
- The report does not establish whether the bill reached parliament or whether the pilot, and four planned monitoring stations, were ever built.

On 16 April 2013, Somaliland Sun reported on efforts to overhaul Somaliland's power sector. Its report described a draft electricity bill, a pilot wind project and an industry built by private operators in the absence of grid investment. What the report states is a set of plans, official statements and one company's history. What it does not establish is any of the outcomes that followed.

## The 2013 snapshot

Somaliland Sun reported that Hargeisa residents paid $1 per kWh while the rest of the world paid an average of $0.15-0.30 per kWh. It described a disjointed network of independent providers operating their own grids with unreliable, dilapidated equipment, and a system in which neighbours pay neighbours for electricity that had gone unchecked since the government had no money to invest.

The minister of energy, Hussein Abdi Dualeh, said the city lost nearly 40% of its electricity to technical problems and antiquated materials. According to the ministry of mining, energy and water resources, it was finalising a draft bill to regulate and standardise the sector, to be submitted to parliament for review that year. Somaliland Sun reported that the law, drawn up in 2011 with supplier input and technical experts provided by the USAid Partnership for Economic Growth, was expected to consolidate Hargeisa's grids, standardise infrastructure and establish safety standards.

## Wind plans, not wind farms

Per Somaliland Sun, the USAid partnership programme began working with the energy and aviation ministries the previous year to establish a five-turbine pilot windfarm with an installed capacity of 100kW. The programme also said it would erect four 25-40 metre-high monitoring stations to collect data. Both were commitments, not completed works. The report records no construction, no cost and no contractor.

The programme hosted Somaliland's first wind power investment workshop, which drew the business community, government officials and diaspora investors. The passage in the article does not state the year. It used satellite imagery to create wind maps and had participants calculate diesel-versus-wind differences in generation costs and revenues.

Dualeh said Somaliland has more than 340 days of sun and some of the fastest wind in the world, and that harnessing wind could supplement power supply. He said: "We just need to find the right partnership."

Suleiman Mohamed, chief of party at the USAid Partnership for Economic Growth programme, said nobody could guarantee the new law would reduce rates, but that it would make the sector more efficient.

## What the report does not establish

It does not say whether the draft bill was ever submitted to or passed by parliament, or whether it became law. It does not say whether the 100kW pilot was built, stalled or cancelled, or whether the four monitoring stations were erected. It gives no budget, contract value or financier for any wind or grid work, and names no contractor beyond the power companies Iftin and KAAH.

Hassan Ahmed Hussein, who brought an industrial bread-making machine to his Hargeisa hotel in 2009, abandoned the bakery for a diesel generator, poles, wires and transformers, founding Iftin, according to Somaliland Sun. Iftin gained nearly 2,000 customers in a catchment of 10,000 residents and later merged with KAAH, the city's largest provider. Hassan said Somaliland had no financial services to invest in equipment or expansion and that, if they had the means, they would put capital into wind. That was a hypothetical.

What has happened to Hargeisa's electricity prices, the merged grid or any wind construction since 2013 is not established by this report.

## Questions

### What wind projects did Somaliland Sun report in 2013?

Per Somaliland Sun, the USAid Partnership for Economic Growth programme said it had begun working with the energy and aviation ministries to establish a five-turbine pilot windfarm with an installed capacity of 100kW, and would erect four 25-40 metre-high monitoring stations. Both were plans, not completed works.

### What is the status of Somaliland's draft electricity bill?

The 2013 report, attributed to the ministry of mining, energy and water resources, described it as a draft being finalised for submission to parliament that year. The report does not establish whether it was submitted, passed or enacted.

### What did the report say about electricity prices in Hargeisa?

Somaliland Sun reported that Hargeisa residents paid $1 per kWh while the rest of the world paid an average $0.15-0.30 per kWh, and that merchants paid independent providers about $10 a month for one 100W lightbulb. These are the publication's 2013 figures.

## Sources

- [Somaliland Gets Wind In Its Sails For Revamping Power Sector](https://somalilandsun.com/somaliland-gets-wind-in-its-sails-for-revamping-power-sector/) — Somaliland Sun, 2013-04-16