His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday commissioned KenGen’s Olkaria V and Olkaria I Additional Unit 6 (Olkaria I AU6) geothermal power stations in Naivasha, Nakuru County.
Olkaria V is a 158MW plant while Olkaria I AU6, with the largest single turbine unit ever installed in any of KenGen’s 5 geothermal units, has an installed capacity of 83.3MW.
The power station started injecting electricity into the national grid last month.
“Olkaria 1 Unit 6 which is 83 megawatts last week marked the successful commissioning of that plant and it is now injecting power into the grid,” Ms Miano said on the sidelines of the inaugural sustainable energy conference in Olkaria on June 17th 2022.
The plant will increase the share of geothermal energy that Kenya Power sells to consumers from the current 37.3 percent.
Wind and solar energy account for 16 and one percent, bringing to 54.3 percent the share of clean energy in the national grid.
Power from hydro sources accounts for 30 percent while diesel-powered thermal plants provide 10 percent.
Kenya Power bought 46 percent or Sh41.1 billion of its electricity from State-controlled KenGen, with other top producers being Lake Turkana Wind and US-based geothermal firm, OrPower 4 Inc.
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) of geothermal goes for an average of Sh6.7 while a similar unit of thermal power costs Sh30.8 on average, highlighting the anticipated impact of the increased share of geothermal electricity on the national grid.
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