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Strong focus will be placed on geothermal energy starting Wednesday during the East African regional energy forum taking place in Nairobi.
The 18th regional conference and exhibition is expected to attract over 2000 power professionals, investors and project developers from more than 30 countries, with high-level government representatives from Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somali land, Sudan and South Sudan all expected to touch on regulatory reforms aimed at improving business and incentives for prospective investors in the sector.
“There is no one size fits all approach to developing geothermal. It’s an amazing source of base load, renewable energy, but we have to take a realistic approach to how it’s developed,” said Amanda Lonsdale, Institutional and Commercial Development Advisor for the East Africa Geothermal Energy Facility, ahead of conference to be attended by officials in the Ministry of energy as well as Chief executives from power utilities’ aligned to the ministry.
This comes in the wake of recent Renewables 2016 Global Status Report which ranked in the eighth position among the largest geothermal energy producers in the world among the top green energy economies.
The report further showed that by the end of 2015 the amount of geothermal energy in Kenya’s national grid had expanded to a total of 600MW out of the 2,333MW total power capacity currently installed.
Recent studies have shown that Kenya has untapped potential of 10,000MW of steam energy in its Rift Valley basin where a series of exploration works are ongoing.
Available data shows that the country’s geothermal monthly consumption hit a record peak of 402.1 million units last October, accounting for 49 per cent of electricity consumed by homes and businesses.