Effects of Extreme Temperature and Rainfall on Vulnerability and Climate Change Resilience of Electricity Transmission Infrastructure in Kajiado County, Kenya

Electricity transmission infrastructure forms a critical enabler of socio-economic development. This infrastructure, however, increasingly faces operational and structural risks associated with the impacts of climate change and variability. Developing countries remain disproportionately vulnerable because electricity systems often operate under resource constraints, capacity limitations, infrastructure deficits, and evolving climate governance frameworks. This study assessed the effects of extreme temperature and extreme rainfall on the vulnerability and resilience of electricity transmission infrastructure in Kajiado County, Kenya. A mixed-methods approach integrating ordinal regression analysis, Spearman correlation analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based terrain assessment, and qualitative thematic analysis was adopted. Primary data were collected through structured expert surveys involving electricity transmission specialists, environmental professionals, economists, and infrastructure practitioners. Secondary climate and hazard information were obtained from national and international climate databases, including climate datasets and projections accessed through the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) Map Room, which provided historical and projected climate information relevant to the study area. Results demonstrated that extreme temperature (p = 0.894) and extreme rainfall (p = 0.076) did not emerge as statistically significant predictors of infrastructure vulnerability and resilience. Spearman correlation analysis further confirmed weak negative associations between resilience and climatic extremes. However, qualitative evidence demonstrated operational vulnerabilities including potential flush-over effects, conductor sagging, transformer overheating, shallow to deep soil erosion around transmission towers, flooding-related access constraints that limits maintenance, and accelerated equipment degradation. The findings reveal that climate hazards affect infrastructure indirectly through interactions with technical limitations, planning deficiencies, and infrastructure design assumptions rather than through informed isolated climatic exposure. Existing infrastructure planning approaches rely predominantly on historical climate datasets while insufficiently integrating future climate projections that can adequately account to design lifetime of these infrastructure. The study recommends institutionalizing climate-informed infrastructure design standards, strengthening predictive climate risk assessment frameworks, incorporating future climate scenarios into transmission planning, and enhancing adaptive maintenance systems to strengthen electricity infrastructure resilience under changing climatic conditions.

climate change; electricity transmission; infrastructure resilience

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