(
Green Economy Initiative)
Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA), a U.S. maker of geothermal power plants, has commissioned the third phase of a geothermal facility at Kenya’s Olkaria, about 85 miles from Nairobi.
The plant will add to the electricity grid 48 megawatts of electricity, the Israeli geothermal company and Reno-based company said in a statement published in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper today.
Kiraitu Murungi, Kenya’s Energy Minister said, “The inauguration is a great stride towards achieving reliable and sustainable power within our national electricity grid. This is especially so because Kenya’s energy needs, both in urban and rural areas, have kept on soaring and the injection of an additional 48 MW by Orpower 4 Inc. to our grid is commendable. ”
“The government is working hard to build a self-reliant and vibrant energy sector that will steer the growth of our economy. In the current Financial Year, the government set aside KSh 4 billion (USD 50 million) to be used for assessment of Geothermal energy potential”, he added.
It is
estimated that the commissioned geothermal power plant will save 120,000 tons of imported oil, mitigate approximately 200,000 tons of CO
2 emissions per year and reduce the average production cost of electricity in Kenya while reducing the east Africa’s biggest economy dependence on imports.
“Ormat’s green technology meets the highest standards for sound environmental practices and complies with all the relevant local and international regulations as acknowledged in the 2001 World Climate Technology Award from the UN Climate Technology Initiative (CTI) to be the first 13 MW Phase of the Olkaria III project.”, said Lucien Bronicki, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of Ormat.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) recently announced the completion of a project testing advanced seismic and drilling techniques in Kenya that exceeded all previous geothermal potential in the region.
Wells of steam, able to generate 4-5 MW of electricity and one yielding a bumper amount of 8MW, have been hit using the new technology.
In addition, at the fourteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in December 2008 in Poland, UNEP released details of a
$1 million research project that identified as much as 7,000 MW of geothermal energy along the Rift Valley in East Africa.
