Kenya says drills Africa's biggest geothermal steam well

By Antony Gitonga NAIVASHA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) said on Thursday it had drilled the largest geothermal steam well in Africa with capacity to generate 30 megawatts (MW) of power and would help cut power costs in the area. Kenya relies heavily on renewable energy such as hydroelectric and geothermal power production. In the Olkaria geothermal hotspot, where KenGen's latest well was drilled, pipes connecting wells to power plants criss-cross the area. KenGen said the well with capacity to produce 30 MW of power was more than four times bigger than the standard size wells that generally have capacity to produce about 7 MW. "This is the largest well in Africa at 30 MW and will see the cost of producing power drop drastically in the coming months," Kengen MD Albert Mugo said. Some of the largest geothermal wells in the world were in Indonesia and the U.S. state of California which were producing 40 MW each, Mugo said. He said 30 MW from a single well would mean savings of $30 million, compared to costs normally spent on drilling several wells to reach that capacity. It would also justify building a power plant next to it, speeding up production. The well, which is 3,000 metres deep, has the potential to supply power to meet half the needs of the nearby town of Nakuru, Mugo said. Before the latest discovery, the biggest well in Olkaria was producing 18MW. The government says it wants to add 5,000 MW to Kenya's power output by 2017 to unleash even faster economic growth, which is expected to raise power demand to 15,000 MW by 2030. Kenya currently has 1,664 MW of capacity against a maximum recorded demand of about 1,410 MW. "Of the 5,000 MW, 1,646 MW will come from geothermal and KenGen plans to contribute 844 MW of that," Mugo said, adding that coal, natural gas, wind and diesel would meet the rest.