Impartial energy firm Globeleq and Kenya’s state-owned Geothermal Growth Co. (GDC) are readying to launch development of the 35-MW Menengai II geothermal challenge in Kenya’s Nakuru County. When accomplished in 2025, the facility challenge will turn out to be the second to come back on-line within the wider Menengai advanced in Kenya’s geothermal-rich Rift Valley area.
Globeleq and GDC on Dec. 28, 2023, introduced the monetary shut of the $117 million challenge. The milestone now paves the best way for the companions to kick off development actions within the coming weeks, spearheaded by engineering, procurement, and development contractor (EPC) Toyota Tsusho Corp. (TTC) and TTC’s fully-owned subsidiary CFAO Kenya.
The challenge marks extra progress for the burgeoning geothermal sector in Kenya. Menengai, a high-temperature geothermal system that contains the Menengai caldera, is one in every of a number of geothermal fields beneath growth in Kenya’s Rift Valley area. For many years, the East African nation has primarily centered growth on just one large-scale geothermal energy advanced—the Olkaria Geothermal Challenge, which is located inside Hell’s Gate Nationwide Park close to the scenic Lake Naivasha in Nakuru County. 5 of the six geothermal energy stations on the website are owned by KenGen, and one is owned by Ormat Applied sciences. KenGen’s crops have a mixed capability of 799 GW.
GDC, which was shaped in 2008 as a state-owned particular objective car (SPV) to speed up the event of geothermal sources in Kenya, started growing the Menengai advanced in 2009. (At the moment, the corporate is a 100% state company working beneath the Ministry of Power and Petroleum.) Whereas GDC says the Menengai advanced harbors a possible of 1,600 MW, its long-term aim is to develop 465 MW of geothermal steam equal.
GDC envisions growth in 5 phases. The primary 105-MW part (Menengai Part 1), assumes a “steam gross sales enterprise mannequin,” the place GDC “provides steam to the facility crops for conversion to electrical energy,” GDC says. The corporate makes use of a steam gathering system (SGS)—a “mega piping system” spanning 25 kilometers—to gather and ship steam from steam fields to the geothermal energy crops. As of 2023, 53 wells with a possible of 169 MW have been drilled, GDC notes.
Sosian Menengai Geothermal Energy Restricted (SMGPL), a home IPP, started working the primary challenge within the discipline, the 35-MW Menengai III, in August 2023. Power and Petroleum Cupboard Secretary Davis Chirchir in August informed nationwide newspaper The Normal the plant is “discharging at 6.9 U.S. cents (about Sh9.6 per unit), which is aggressive.”
Globeleq is owned 70% by British Worldwide Funding, a UK authorities growth establishment, and 30% by Norfund, an Africa-focused energy developer, proprietor, and operator. The corporate acquired a controlling stake in QPEA in 2021. The third challenge, Orpower Twenty Two, is owned by China’s Kaishan Group, an air compressor maker that’s transitioning right into a renewable power firm. Kaishan served as EPC for Sosian’s Menengai III challenge, which is now on-line.
In keeping with Kaishan, the Sosian-Menengai geothermal energy station is powered by Kaishan modular energy crops, two steam screw expanders, and three moist steam Natural Rankine Cycle (ORC) modular energy crops. “It doesn’t want to make use of the steam ejector and vacuum pump of the standard central energy station to separate non-condensable gases, thereby decreasing the parasitic load of the facility station and enhancing its effectivity,” the corporate mentioned in a briefing associated to a presentation on the 2023 World Geothermal Congress in Beijing in September.
Globeleq in December mentioned that when Menengai II reaches industrial operations in 2025, it can ship “clear, dependable, and reasonably priced baseload energy to the nationwide grid and allow GDC to monetize the obtainable steam sources from the Menengai steam discipline.” GDC will provide steam to the challenge by GDC beneath a 25-year challenge implementation and steam provide settlement. Globeleq will function and preserve the facility plant as soon as it reaches industrial operations, promoting its energy to nationwide distribution firm Kenya Energy beneath a 25-year energy buy settlement.
“The monetary shut reached by Globeleq and its companions is a superb milestone for the geothermal sector in Kenya,” famous Paul Ngugi, GDC managing director and CEO. “It affords the nation one other alternative to develop 35 MW extra of fresh, reasonably priced, and dependable energy.”
The Menengai geothermal challenge is of “strategic nationwide worth, particularly at this important second when Kenya is set to decarbonize its economic system,” he added. “The obtainable geothermal useful resource in Menengai is plentiful, and at GDC, we’re comfortable that we made the challenge bankable for investor entry.”
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior affiliate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
