The company, which finished a pilot of a 5MW portable station last year, plans to grow electricity production from portable geothermal stations in a move that would boost the nation’s power supply.
KenGen managing director Eddy Njoroge was quoted by Business Daily Africa as saying that portable plants will allow early generation unlike conventional plants that take nearly ten years to implement.
"In this way, we are able to meet current supply-demand needs as we invest to safeguard future supply," Njoroge said.
Construction of a portable plant, including wellheads, takes about six months while a typical geothermal plant’s construction takes between four to ten years.
Geothermal Development Company (GDC) MD Silas Simiyu said, "With this concept, in the next two years, we should be able to generate 200MW before even the main power plant has come on line and that way we should be able to do away with emergency power that we have been using whenever we have poor hydrology."
GDC noted that electricity production from geothermal costs about $0.07, while from medium speed diesel it costs $0.18.
