Kenya’s ranking in Geothermal Production Up

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has announced that it has connected to the national grid, the first unit of the newly built Olkaria V geothermal power plant near Naivasha.

Officials say the plant achieved the  full load of 86.6 Megawatts (MW) on Sunday, while the second unit has been delayed following a recent incident where 10 staff were injured during test runs at the plant.

Additions of the entire 165MW Olkaria V plant, Kenya will increase its geothermal power generation capacity to 849 MW coming next to Italy with 944 MW of installed geothermal power generation capacity.

With unit 1 now online, Kenya’s total installed capacity is 726.6 MW of the global geothermal power generation capacity at 14,900 MW. With 3650MW, the US leads in global geothermal power house followed by Indonesia and the Philippines.

With an installed capacity of 723MW being harnessed in Olkaria, Menegai and Eburru fields in the Rift Valley, Kenya’s expertise in geothermal is unrivalled in Africa and is among the world’s top 10 producers.

Geothermal is affordable and reliable source of energy