Africa: the New Frontier for Geothermal Investment and Development

Abstract

The geothermal electric power generation was, invented in Italy in 1904. In Africa, Uganda and Kenya among a others, undertook geothermal exploration in 1954 and 1956 (forty and forty two (40 and 42) years, respectively. Then why has these countries no geothermal power developed to date while Kenya is generating 667 MW of geothermal power and 188 MW under construction? The answer lies in Kenya’s overcoming the lack of policy, institutional and regulatory framework including geothermal specific corporate bodies that are barriers to the Geothermal Development. The county created the Geothermal Development Company Ltd (GDC) with a clear mandate of developing the geothermal resource, policy and strategy which in turn, attracted partnership of several reputable national, regional, bilateral and multinational financial houses to rise millions of fund inflows for a spectrum of activities ranging from consultancies, feasibility studies, drilling rigs, financial management and technical assistance and a host of others to enable Kenya to rank the 9th out of ten World’s geothermal top 10 countries to date. The geothermal resource estimated at 20,000-MWe, using present-day technology is distributed in twenty one (21) countries namely Algeria, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar Malawi, Morocco Mozambique Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. Once these countries create holistic policy framework and corporate bodies and those currently implementing surface surveys and test well drilling projects using Risk Mitigation Fund (GRMF) funds are completed, Africa will not only become the new frontier for billion dollar geothermal energy investment and development but also pave the way to eliminating its image as the ‘Dark Continent‘, reduce green house gases, relieve the majority of 600 million people without electricity and meeting constituent countries’ goals of sustainable electricity for all (SE4ALL) by 2030.