KenGen has announced plans of scaling up the deployment of renewable energy in the country by adding an additional 3000MW.
The new campaign will be driven largely by deploying up to 2000MW drawn from Geothermal and Hydro sources as baseload power to stabilize the country’s energy sources by diversifying away from expensive thermal sources.
KenGen, which is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), says it has put in place solid plans to optimize the existing Hydro sources even as it pushes for the development of new Hydropower stations, and expansion of existing ones, particularly within the Tana River basin.
Speaking at KenGen’s Stima Plaza Headquarters in Nairobi, the acting Managing Director, and CEO, Abraham Serem, said that the company had rolled out a 10-year strategy that seeks to add 3,000MW.
He added that the company will be seeking to rehabilitate its existing power plants to make them more efficient for a sustainable generation.
“The Board approved a 10-year Corporate Strategy last year and we are now ready to roll it out in this new year 2023 having developed a robust implementation plan to lead us in the next frontier of our business growth,” said Serem.
In a statement, Serem added that KenGen will be looking to tap into the vast potential of Geothermal Energy in the Rift Valley region, which is estimated to be at least 10,000MW of clean and renewable energy.
“So far we have only exploited about 0.9GW of the 10GW geothermal potential and that is why a huge chunk of the additional capacity will be drawn from geothermal,” said KenGen’s Acting Managing Director.
Also, the Managing Director singled out the upcoming 305 MW Geothermal projects, with 280 MW coming from Olkaria and 25 MW from the Eburru Geothermal Power Plant, for which construction will commence immediately after getting the requisite approvals.
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Further, the NSE-listed company plans to leverage new technology to rehabilitate its oldest geothermal power plant, the 45MW Olkaria I, to give it a new lease of life and increase its generation capacity to more than 60MW.
“We will also be rolling out plans to up-rate the turbines for the Olkaria I additional units 4 and 5 and Olkaria IV power plants to increase their output by an additional 40MW,” Serem stated.
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KenGen has on the other hand announced plans to rehabilitate its Gogo Hydropower plant to increase its capacity by about 8MW from the current 2MW. This is expected to contribute to the stability of the power supply in the western region.
KenGen says it will continue with its commercial drilling projects in the Horn of Africa in Djibouti and Ethiopia where the company has drilled several Geothermal wells, the latest being the first of Three wells successfully completed in November 2022 at Gale le Koma Geothermal site in Djibouti.
