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Tanzania looking closely at geothermal to fight power shortages

Tanzania looking closely at geothermal to fight power shortages Mbeya region, Tanzania, Africa (source: flickr/ Sara&Joachim, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 6 Sep 2011

Tanzania is looking at geothermal power to fight power shortages, as well as deal with the expected surge in power demand over the next 15 years.

Reported last week, East Africa’s second biggest economy, Tanzania, has plans to deal with electricity shortages by “promoting geothermal energy as the country looks for sources of renewable power.

The government is looking towards the private sector to explore if there is an interest in developing geothermal power projects in the country.

In a similar story to Kenya, draughts have drained the country’s main hydropower dams, while at the same time power demand is expected to rise exponentially over the next 15 years.

It is expected that the country has about 650 MW of geothermal power generation capacity potential in the Mbeya region alone. It is expected that there might be more discoveries made, but exploratory work demands high investment costs.

Source: Bloomberg