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KenGen receives two key awards at East African Power Industry event

Alexander Richter 28 Aug 2015

The Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has received two key industry awards at the inaugural East African Power Industry Awards in Nairobi yesterday, the Outstanding Clean Power Award and Excellence in Power Generation.

The Kenya Electricity Generating Company  (KenGen) has received two key industry awards at the inaugural East African Power Industry Awards in Nairobi yesterday.

KenGen won the Outstanding Clean Power Award and also took top place in the Excellence in Power Generation category.

Outstanding Clean Power Project, Winner: Olkaria Expansion Project, KenGen, Kenya

Kenya Electricity Generating Company is the East African nation’s biggest power producer. KenGen has the ability to produce 1,252 megawatts, or 75 percent of the countries installed capacity. It plans to add a further 844 megawatts to the national grid by 2017. In December 2014 the Olkaria 280MW came online which comprises the 140MW Olkaria 1V and the Olkaria 1 units 4 and 5 each with a capacity of 70MW. This will help the country save Sh2.2 billion a month by displacing the expensive thermal electricity generators that use costly fossil fuels in favour of the cheaper electricity from geothermal.

What our judges said: “The final piece in one of the largest geothermal power projects in the world. Making Kenya a world leader in Geothermal energy and significantly contributing to bringing down the cost of power in Kenya by directly offsetting thermal based generation”.  “An excellent project”.

Finalists in this category: 2.2 MW Gorge Farm AD Plant, Tropical Power, Kenya; Adama-II wind farm, HYDROCHINA and CGCOC, Ethiopia; Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, Kenya; “Pay as you use” solar project, NVI Energy, Kenya

 

Excellence in Power Generation, Winner: KenGen, Kenya

In November 2014, The Kenya Electricity Generating Company connected the Olkaria I unit 5 to the national grid, paving the way for the completion of the 280 Megawatt geothermal power project. The unit is now feeding 52.5MW of electricity to the national grid and marks the final phase in what is seen as a major step toward significantly lowering the cost of electricity in East Africa’s largest economy. A major milestone was achieved on the 280MW project when unit 5 was synchronized with the national grid and this is the last of the four 70 MW units in the 280 MW geothermal project.

The Olkaria 280MW project, the largest of its kind in the world, comprises the 140 MW Olkaria IV and the Olkaria I units 4 and 5, each with a capacity of 70 MW. The World Bank aided Olkaria project is considered as one of the largest single geothermal investment in the world. The additional geothermal power has helped cut electricity bills by about 30 per cent since August 2014 following the drop in the fuel surcharge from Sh7.22 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in July to Sh2.51 in February 2015.

Finalists: Eskom Uganda Limited, Uganda; Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation, Ethiopia; TANESCO, Tanzania