- Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen) has announced a renewed plan to scale up the deployment of renewable energy in the country by adding 3,000MW.
- The KenGen Acting CEO singled out the upcoming 305MW geothermal projects, with 280MW coming from Olkaria and 25MW from the Eburru geothermal power plant
Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen) has announced a renewed plan to scale up the deployment of renewable energy in the country by adding 3,000MW. This new campaign will be primarily driven by deploying up to 2,000MW drawn from geothermal and hydro sources as baseload power to stabilise the country’s energy sources, thereby diversifying away from expensive thermal sources. KenGen says it has put in place plans to optimise the existing hydro sources even as it pushes for developing new hydropower stations and expanding existing ones, particularly within the Tana River basin.
The Acting Managing Director and CEO of KenGen’s Stima Plaza Headquarters in Nairobi, Abraham Serem, said “The Board approved a ten-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.” He noted that the company had revamped its corporate strategy and rolled out a 10-year strategy to add 3,000MW within the next ten years. He said the company would seek to rehabilitate its existing power plants to make them more efficient for sustainable generation.
The KenGen Acting CEO singled out the upcoming 305MW geothermal projects, with 280MW coming from Olkaria and 25MW from the Eburru geothermal power plant, for which he said construction would commence immediately after getting the requisite approvals. Also, the company plans to leverage new technology to rehabilitate its oldest geothermal power plant, the 45MW Olkaria I to give it a new life and increase its generation capacity to more than 60MW. In addition, on the Western side of the Country, KenGen has announced plans to rehabilitate its Gogo hydropower plant to increase its capacity by about 8MW from the current 2MW to contribute to the stability of the power supply in the western region.