Uganda and Tanzania to follow Kenyan lead on geothermal


As Kenya announces that geothermal power will contribute some 1,646MW to the country’s planned 5,000MW injection of generation capacity, neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda are keen to take advantage of their own Rift Valley steam potential, but both face substantial challenges in terms of financing and technical capacity. In May 2013, US developer Ormat Technologies announced the commercial operation of Plant 2 in the Olkaria III complex in Naivasha, and the company plans to bring a third plant on line during 2014, taking Olkaria III’s total capacity to 100MW. The site also has 150MW of generation from two plants developed by Kenya Electricity Generation Company (KenGen), and the state Geothermal Development Company (GDC) estimates Olkaria’s total potential capacity to be as high as 1,000MW.