Kenya to tap Rift Valley's geothermal gold mine

Long-standing plans to establish Kenya's Rift Valley as one of the world's largest providers of geothermal energy received a major boost last week, with the news of an ambitious plan by national utility giant the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen).

The $1.3bn (£830m) project, to develop 280MW of geothermal power by 2013, is expected to be backed by the World Bank and will more than double KenGen's geothermal capacity.

The company told Reuters that the "scope of the project includes four 70MW power-generating machines, steam-gathering systems, substations, transmission lines and other infrastructure".

It added that it has already signed a joint venture agreement with New Zealand-based engineering firm Sinclair Knight Merz to undertake the project and has purchased two drilling rigs to work on the development of the new power plants.

The project is likely to accelerate the development of one of the world's most promising regions for geothermal energy.

According to a report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released in late 2008, that also involved contributions from KenGen, up to 4,000MW of electricity could be harnessed from the Rift Valley by tapping into naturally occurring steam wells.

The report also concluded that geothermal power plants would be relatively cost-effective, calculating that a 70MW geothermal power plant would cost $75m less than a conventional plant of the same scale.

Speaking at the time, Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director, urged Kenya to exploit its geothermal resources as a means of providing electricity to its population without increasing carbon emissions.

"It is time to take this technology off the back-burner in order to power livelihoods, fuel development and reduce dependence on polluting and unpredic table fossil fuels," he said. "From the place where human-kind took its first faltering steps is emerging one of the answers to its continued survival on this planet."