Analyzing Geothermal Energy Use in the East African Region: The Case of Kenya

Abstract

Being an emerging economy where the dependence on geothermal power to sustain production over the years in the country ranks high, Kenya’s Rift Valley contains substantial geothermal energy enough to power the economy than most African countries. In the last several years, geothermal production has gained steam, and this has resulted in an unprecedented surge in installed capacity in different sites amid rising demands. This coincides with allocations to optimize the growth of the sector and the investments to boost supply among renewables. With that has come joint ventures and growing prospects in the sector likely to extend into the upcoming decades. Of great significance is the uptick in geothermal power output and its emergence as the second largest source of renewables alongside infrastructure proliferation. While this reflects the profile of Kenya as a major producer worldwide, geothermal power continues to serve the nation through improved access to electricity for communities and firms as clean source of energy with low carbon foot print and limited environmental impacts due to many factors. Considering the rising usage and the role of Kenya as regional leader in geothermal energy output, very little has been done in the literature to assess current capacities and the state of the resource. Added to that, previous studies overlooked the use of mix model in tracking the status and evolving patterns of geothermal parameters from production to installed capacities in the country. This paper will fill that void by analyzing geothermal energy use in the East African Nation of Kenya. Emphases are on the issues, trends, impacts, production, factors and current efforts to boost production. Using mix scale methods of GIS and descriptive statistics, the results show changes in usage, rising production in geothermal energy and spatial dispersal of various indicators from assets to elevation along the Rift Valley. With the emergent trends attributed to socio-economic and physical factors, the paper recommended the need for education, support for energy infrastructure development, spatial analysis and the design of a regional geothermal energy information atlas.