East African countries considering joint geothermal policies

Well head plant of Green Energy Group on location, Kenya (source: Green Energy Group)

Alexander Richter 22 Nov 2012

The countries of East Africa are – so local news from Kenya as part of the ongoing African Rift Geothermal Conference in Nairobi, Kenya – are looking at the possibility to jointly create development plans and to fund fast-track projects.

The minster for energy of Uganda sees an opportunity to create a “shared pool of technical experts, funding negotiators, and exchange of best practices”. He sees this as a tool to significantly reduce the time it takes for projects to get off the ground.

The challenges that Kenya had to overcome to manage its projects, could be skipped by Uganda or Tanzania in learning from the Kenyan experience in developing its geothermal resources.

Kenya is the only Eastern African country that managed to get geothermal connected to its national grid.

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Ethiopia which has possible 700 megawatt geothermal generation capacity is on course to develop its first well, while Uganda has crafted policies and legal framework to develop an estimated 5,000 megawatts. Tanzania is yet to make policies for geothermal exploitation.

Energy minister Kiraitu Murungi told development partners to team up and present their interests in specific projects jointly to save governments from endless fragmented negotiations that delay projects.

“It would be prudent for investors, donors and development partners to fit into single baskets for faster and co-ordinated negotiations for specific projects to reduce time wasted at negotiation stages,” said Murungi.

He told the conference to come up with solutions to challenges including funding and human resource training before the next bi-annual summit.

Over 600 delegates, among them government representatives, insurers, development fund agencies and exhibitors are attending the conference.”

Source: The Star