The photo is sourced from esfccompany.com
The capacity increase was caused by the completion of the construction of the 83 MW Olkaria VII power plant in Hell’s Gate National Park, which is located northwest of the capital city of Nairobi. Thanks to this project, the aggregate capacity of GeoPPs operating in Kenya reached 727 MW last year. The country ranks sixth worldwide in these terms, after the United States (2,852 MW), Indonesia (2,124 MW), the Philippines (1,590 MW), New Zealand (926 MW) and Iceland (763 MW). It should be noted that GeoPPs are the most common source of electricity generation in Kenya. According to Ember research centre, they accounted for 45% of the country’s power generation in 2022, compared to a combined 43% for wind, solar and hydro, and 12% for all other sources, including diesel generators.
A little less than half of last year’s increase in GeoPP capacity was provided by two countries: the United States, which put into operation the 30 MW Casa Diablo IV power plant, the first GeoPP to have been built in California in 30 years; and Indonesia, which completed the construction of the third unit of the North Sumatra-based Sorik Marapi power plant, whose capacity will reach 240 MW after all of its five units come on stream. The share of geothermal plants in the overall energy mix of Indonesia and the United States in 2022 reached 5% and 0.5%, respectively. At the same time, GeoPPs are the most reliable source of renewable energy in the United States. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that the average utilisation rate of GeoPPs was 73% in 2022, while biomass units, solar and wind generators had the average utilisation rates of 61%, 25% and 36%, respectively.
The global capacity of GeoPPs reached 11,710 MW last year. This figure could double with the completion of the plants, which are under construction (1,352 MW), as well as projects that have been announced (3,658 MW) or are already in the pre-investment stage (6,690 MW).
