Green Energy Group signs $93m contract for 12 well head plants
Well head plant of Green Energy Group on location, Kenya (source: Green Energy Group)
Alexander Richter
31 Oct 2012
Norwegian Green Energy Group announces, KenGen has signed a contract to purchase a minimum of 12 modular well head power plants from the company for a purchase price of around $93 million.
In a release by Norwegian company Green Energy Group AS, the company announces that Kenya power house KenGen has signed an agreement to purchase a minimum of 12 geothermal well head plants. The combined capacity of the plants to be delivered are over 65 MW.
The contract has been awarded following Green Energy Group’s successful delivery of a “proof of concept” plant to KenGen, which has been providing power into the Kenyan grid since April 2012.
“We have been able to prove our technology, and we won this contract despite severe competition with other players”, Terje Laugerud, CEO of Green Energy Group AS, comments.
Installation of the first of the new power plants will be completed in Q1 2013, and delivery of the entire 65MW will be completed during 2013 and 2014.
Traditional geothermal power plants require multiple wells, extensive design work, long construction periods and entail large upfront investments to cover the 4-6 years before power generation can occur. Once in place these are major fixed constructions which are immobile should the power source become depleted or fail.
Green Energy’s approach is to provide small, independent wellhead power plants, which through their unique modular design can be delivered ready-made in 40-foot ISO containers. The patent pending design differentiates itself from traditional solutions in that the plants relatively small footprint means that the plants can be located on wells inaccessible to traditional plants. In addition the turbines can be configured to each well’s unique characteristics, thus optimizing power output.
The modular based solution is faster and easier to deploy and energy can be produced much earlier in the development cycle providing quicker returns to investors. They can operate independently or be organized in farms to provide an equivalent resource to larger traditional power plants.
Based on standard components, they can easily be decommissioned and transported to a new well should the existing well begin to deplete or fail. Equally importantly, the failed well can easily be returned to its original state thus preserving the environment.
Kenya still has extensive geothermal resource potential and a large demand for electricity. There are identified resources of more than 7,000 MW, which would cover Kenya’s demand for the next 20 years and their goal is to develop this within 2025. As of today only some 170-200 MW of this is utilized.
“In general we see a large potential for our technology in markets such as Asia, East Africa and South America. Indonesia alone has identified 28,100 MW of geothermal potential, making it one of the worlds largest markets for this type of energy”. Terje Laugerud, CEO of Green Energy Group AS, concludes.
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Source: Company release by email
