The Olkaria geothermal field’s thermal resources in Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya are found at depths between 600m and 3km underground, running at temperatures as high as 350ºC. Ultimately, Kenya wants to increase its installed geothermal power capacity to around 10,000MW by 2037 to form the bulk of its energy mix.
“With 863MW of geothermal power on tap, Kenya is ranked seventh globally on IRENA’s renewable energy statistics for 2022 and shows its engineering capability through the Olkaria facility.”
The Olkaria Geothermal Project started with the commissioning of Olkaria I, the first geothermal power plant in Africa – comprising three units of 15MW each between 1981 and 1985.
The plant has averaged an availability factor of more than 95% since commissioning and is connected to the national grid via a 132kV transmission line.
The country drilled Olkaria II’s wells between 1985 and 1993, but the power station was only constructed in 2000 when funds became available. It works on a single flash plant cycle with a 7.5t/h/MW steam consumption.
The turbines are single-flow six-stage condensing with direct contact spray jet condenser. The power generated is transmitted to the national grid via a 220kV double circuit line. Olkaria III is a 48MW power plant run by IPP Orpower Ltd, which also sells the power to utility company KPLC.
While Olkaria IV (140MW) and Olkaria I units 4 & 5 (140MW) work together as one power station, the project’s largest. Olkaria V was officially commissioned in July 2022 to put 172MW onto the grid.
Also, formally commissioned that month, Olkaria I Additional Unit (AU) 6 Geothermal Power Plant injects an additional 86MW into the national grid, making it the largest single unit in the facility.
The facility is complemented by the KenGen-owned 15 wellhead generation plants at Eburra (2,3MW) and 14 at Olkaria (5MW). ESI
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