Kenya Electricity Generating Co. (KenGen) has announced plans to raise $1.95 billion in an effort to build new, as well as upgrade existing plants in a bid to almost double its power output from renewable fuel. The company is planning to add 651 megawatts from underground steam in the next 5 years.
The company says that most of the funds will be sought from development financiers.
The company plans to build four new 140MW steam-power plants each, with steam wells having already been drilled at two of the planned facilities. Furthermore, the company also plans to upgrade some projects to add 66MW and to deliver another 25MW from wellheads, mobile generating plants at the Eburru field.
KenGen is able to generate 1,803MW of Kenya’s total installed capacity of 2,892 MW. Out of that, 705.5 MW is geothermal energy produced by the company. KenGen has a total installed generation capacity of 1,818MW comprising hydro (826MW), geothermal (713MW), thermal (254MW) and wind (26MW).
President Uhuru Kenyatta is pushing investors to tap Kenya’s vast geothermal resources, seeking to switch entirely to renewable energy to generate electricity for the nation’s grid, from about 90% currently.
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