In Kenya, the energy company Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has announced the commissioning of unit 6 of the Olkaria I geothermal power plant in the Rift Valley. The new facility injects 83.3 MWe into Kenya Power’s electricity grid.
This is it. Unit 6 of the Olkaria I geothermal power plant is now operational. The announcement was made by Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen), which has successfully completed the production tests of this new geothermal power plant with a capacity of 83.3 MWe.
The facility is located in the Hell’s Gate National Park in Olkaria, Nakuru County, at the eastern end of the Eastern Rift Valley, about 43 km southwest of the nearest town, Naivasha, and about 122 km northwest of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
State-owned Ethiopia Electric Power (EEP) reports progress made on drilling and well testing on the Aluto-Langano geothermal project. Five of eight planned wells have currently already been drilled and production testing on three of these wells have been completed. We reported on the start of production testing at Aluto-Langano earlier this year.
Based on the production tests that have already been completed, a single well has a capacity to produce up to 8 MW. “Usually thermals with up to 3,000 meter depth are expected to generate up to three MW but in this case the capacity is very high that shows that the drilling locations are proper areas,” commented EEP Public Relations Head Moges Mekonnen.
The target capacity for the Aluto-Langano geothermal project is 70 MW. There is currently a 7.5-MW production unit that was installed in the site three decades ago.
Wells in the Aluto-Langano project were drilled to depths between 2500 to 3000 meters. KenGen has provided drilling services for the project as part of the company’s revenue diversification efforts. We reported on KenGen drilling the fifth well in the project earlier this year.
