Kenya Electricity Signs $1.3 Billion Geothermal Deal  

BusinessWeek reports on a new geothermal power project in Kenya - Kenya Electricity Signs $1.3 Billion Geothermal Deal.

Kenya Electricity Generating Co., the East African nation’s biggest power producer, signed a contract worth more than $1.3 billion for Sinclair Knight Merz Pty Ltd. to be consultants for the construction of facilities to provide 280 megawatts of geothermal power from underground hot springs.

Work will begin this month and take three years, Ken Gen Managing Director Edward Njoroge said in an e-mailed statement today. The geothermal power project, which will be Kenya’s biggest, comprises two fields in Olkaria near the town of Naivasha, he said.

“The scope of the project includes four 70-megawatt power generating machines, steam-gathering systems, substations, transmission lines and other infrastructure,” Njoroge said

The company drilling a geothermal well near Penola, in South Australia's south-east, says it is more than a quarter of the way through the project.

Panax Geothermal has a massive rig set up at a site near Penola and has already drilled more than a kilometre. It says if it is successful it will be Australia's first geothermal site to access hot water in an aquifer to create energy.

The company's managing director, Bertus de Graaf, says two months has been set aside for the drilling program. "We're targeting a maximum depth of 4,000 metres," he said.