GDC planning geothermal industrial park at Menengai, Kenya

The Geothermal Improvement Firm (GDC) continues work on the deliberate industrial park that can make the most of geothermal warmth and energy from the Menengai geothermal subject in Nakuru County, Kenya. Within the coming years, the geothermal undertaking in Menengai can rework Nakuru County into an industrial hub.

GDC has made vital progress in constructing this industrial hub with the signing of a steam offtake settlement with Karsan Ramji and Sons, the producer of Ndovu Cement, simply earlier than the tip of 2023. Below the settlement, GDC will provide steam to the cement producer who will then produce energy utilizing a 4-MW wellhead era unit to energy the cement manufacturing facility. The warmth may even be used for a drying unit.

In mid-2023, GDC printed a Request for Proposals for the “Institution of Geothermal Direct-Use Powered Investments on the Menengai Geothermal Subject, Kenya.” This builds on the pilot tasks that GDC had been endeavor for geothermal direct use. The prototypes concerned the usage of geothermal steam for milk pasteurization, heating of greenhouses, aquaculture ponds, laundromats, and the drying of cereals.

Based on Eng Martha Mburu, GDC’s supervisor for direct use, the corporate is presently in talks with a number of companies trying to arrange their services in Menengai. A earlier RFP issued again in 2019 attracted the curiosity of about 10 corporations, however negotiations fell by means of through the COVID outbreak.

“The buyers will implement the tasks. They are going to lease the land and develop the industries and we’ll pipe the steam and geothermal water… our job can be to provide the vitality and invoice the vitality at an agreed tariff,” mentioned Mburu.

GDC had additionally beforehand introduced plans of constructing a geothermal spa on the Menengai steam subject just like the one in Olkaria and modeled after the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.

Based on Mburu, the steam subject has wells which have pressures which can be too low for energy era. To make the most of these wells, GDC is trying into direct-use purposes. “On the demonstration undertaking, we’ve been capable of present how helpful geothermal warmth may be for course of heating and the large value financial savings that corporations could make. Right here, we get scorching water at 130 °C, which might require quite a lot of fossil gas to warmth below regular circumstances.”

Promising outcomes from pilot tasks

Through the Kenya Geothermal Congress in 2022, then-Managing Director Jared Otheino described how GDC had been piloting 5 prototypes for the usage of geothermal steam for milk pasteurization, heating of greenhouses, aquaculture ponds, laundromats, and the drying of cereals. Based on Othieno, the purpose of those pilot assessments is to assist in the commercialization of geothermal vitality for direct use.

GDC has since offered updates on the undertaking, stating that the usage of geothermal vitality had leads to vitality and price financial savings throughout the completely different tasks. For instance, tilapia fish cultivated within the heated aqua pond matured in six months in comparison with the 9 months wanted in unheated ponds. Prices of grain drying had additionally been lowered by as much as 60% within the grain drying facility.

Along with fish ponds and a grain drier, the demonstration middle additionally has a milk processor and greenhouses the place greens had been efficiently grown. With such numerous purposes, geothermal vitality is harnessed optimally utilizing cascade warmth optimization. “These purposes require completely different temperatures – we can’t put water at 80 levels in a fish pond, it should cook dinner the fish. We cascade the water, beginning with purposes that require a excessive quantity of warmth first and be sure that the vitality is spent effectively,” defined Mburu.

Sizzling contemporary water is circulated all through the demonstration centre. Warmth is harnessed from the geothermal water utilizing a warmth exchanger. The geothermal brine is then saved in an evaporation lagoon that has been lined to forestall seepage into the bottom. The mineral-rich brine may be helpful for the pores and skin, and could also be used for a spa.

“We’re taking a departure from standard energy era into an thrilling and promising realm of captive energy and thermal warmth. And that is vital. It means, we’re, in essence, increasing the geothermal pie and making it accessible and worthwhile,” mentioned GDC Chief Govt Paul Ngugi.

Supply: The Customary