Kenya’s Trailblazing Energy Transformation Policy is Now Inspiring Others

The Great Rift Valley — a geological formation running 6,000 kilometers from Eritrea to Mozambique — offers bountiful opportunities: Not only is this area rich in geothermal activity underneath the earth’s surface, the earth’s crust is also particularly thin here, making exploration relatively easy. The Olkaria Geothermal Power Station is a perfect example: the facility spans across roughly 200 square kilometers in the region; and since it first started operating in 1981, the plant has grown several times to exploit this clean energy source for Kenyans. Today, Olkaria can deliver close to 900 megawatts — but that’s nothing compared to the government’s latest plans to produce close to 5,000 megawatts by the end of the decade. And even that number represents only about half of Kenya’s full geothermal potential.

DW