Geothermal development picks up steam in East Africa

Delays in finalising Corbetti Geothermal Company’s plans to sell up to 500MW of geothermal power to Ethiopia Electric Power’s grid and hold-ups in major Kenyan schemes that seek to harness the Rift Valley’s huge resources have underlined the slow pace of projects harnessing energy from the earth’s core in eastern Africa. For all the efforts to develop independent power projects and the support of leading multilaterals and initiatives such as the Geothermal Risk Mitigation Facility (GRMF), only the Olkaria complex in Kenya has been exploited so far on a large scale.