Greater Olkaria Feasibility Study, Kenya
The Olkaria Geothermal Field is located in Kenya’s Rift Valley, northwest of Nairobi and south of Lake Naivasha. Kenya has numerous geothermal power plants in operation, producing over 600 MW. Two 140 MW power plants are under construction and the anticipated capacity of the area is about 1000 MW.
Mannvit, Verkís, Vantaskil and Ísor, cooperated in a comprehensive assessment and feasibility study for the Greater Olkaria Geothermal System in Kenya. ISOR and Vatnaskil, a subsidiary of Mannvit, developed a model to simulate the behavior of the geothermal reservoir to predict the future capacity of the area. Mannvit and Verkís conducted a technical assessment of the current power plants.
The main deliverables from the study were: compilation of available data from various sources, review of the conceptual model, development of a numerical reservoir model, preliminary conceptual design and process design, financial and economic analysis, development plan proposal, analysis of chemical constraints as well as training of Kenya Electricity Generating Company Limited (KenGen) employees.
Role
Drilling program design, collation and assessment of available information and data, evaluation of the environmental impact, determination of quality of the geothermal resources, recommendation of the optimum utilization of the field. Recommendation of locations and sizes of the future power plants. Feasibility study for power plants in line with the optimized capacity of the geothermal field.
607 MW
Installed capacity in Kenya1500 MW
Projects underway4
Companies in consortiumKenGen is the leading electric power generation company in Kenya, producing about 80 percent of electricity consumed in the country. The company utilises various sources to generate electricity ranging from hydro, geothermal, thermal and wind. KenGen has a workforce of over 2000, located at different power plants in the country.