On 8 June at a special meeting in Nairobi, ITC and the Kenya Electricity Generating Company Limited (KenGen) signed an MoU to strengthen their collaboration in joint education and research. KenGen has as its core business to develop, manage and operate power generation plants and to supply electric power to the Kenyan market. The company has plans to expand its activities in the Eastern African region. In the MoU, both parties agree to collaborate in several areas of mutual interest.
The collaboration will focus on geothermal energy development, including the development of curricula and training programs for staff of other industry players, to jointly conduct research attaining the private sector research agenda and to facilitate internships of University of Twente/ITC’s students at KenGEN. Also, ITC and KenGen jointly participate in seminars, workshops and conferences including participation with other collaborators in areas related to geothermal development and other renewable energy sources.
Geothermal energy
With a potential of approximately 10,000 MW of electric power, geothermal energy is one of the major energy resources for Kenya for the in the near future. The last few years, the power industry in East Africa have turned their focus more and more on acquiring of energy from sustainable resources. KenGen hopes to increase the energy from geothermal sources to 5,000 MW in the next three years.
ITC has a proven track record in geothermal capacity building, most recently with ITC strengthening energy education and research in the field of geothermics and gas extraction in the NICHE Project in Tanzania. Furthermore, ITC undertakes activities in Indonesia in the GEOCAP project; an international public-private partnership with universities, knowledge institutes and the industry working together on improving Indonesia’s ability to profit from its volcanic geology, ideal for the acquisition of geothermal energy.
