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Kenya is already in the top 10 countries when it comes to power stations powered by geothermal energy. Kenya has the 6e highest installed generation capacity and is moving closer to becoming one of the few countries in the world with a geothermal energy generation capacity of more than 1,000 MW. Kenya's current installed capacity from geothermal energy is 985 MW. According to THINK GEOENERGYonly New Zealand (1,042 MW), Turkey (1,691 MW), the Philippines (1,952 MW), Indonesia (2,418 MW) and the US (3,900 MW) have more generation capacity than Kenya.
With several projects at different stages of development, Kenya will soon cross the 1,000 MW mark. Kenya also has much greater potential for generating electricity from its geothermal resources. This potential is estimated at at least 10,000 MW. In exciting news, it looks like the first 1,000 MW of that additional capacity will soon be delivered via a proposed 1,000 MW data center. Last week, Microsoft Corp. announced and G42 are launching a comprehensive package of digital investments in Kenya, as part of an initiative with the Kenyan Ministry of Information, Communications and Digital Economy. Working with Microsoft and other stakeholders, G42 will lead arranging an initial investment of $1 billion for the various components outlined in the comprehensive package. One of the Kenyan investment priorities is an advanced green data center that will be built by G42 and its partners to run Microsoft Azure in a new East African cloud region.
The initiative will include four additional pillars that will be pursued together with local partners: (1) development and research of local language AI models; (2) an East Africa Innovation Lab combined with broad training in digital AI skills; (3) international and local connectivity investments; and (4) working with the Government of Kenya to support secure cloud services across East Africa.
A fact sheet released by the White House As part of Kenya's state visit to the United States last week, several new areas of cooperation between the US and Kenya were highlighted, including this Green Data Center for Cloud Services.
The White House said: “The government of Kenya and Microsoft have announced that they are joining a partnership that plans to build a 1 gigawatt data center in Naivasha, Kenya. The data center will run on Microsoft Azure cloud services and provide access to cloud-based applications and services to organizations and individuals in Kenya and East Africa, allowing the Government of Kenya to move its data and services to trusted suppliers. The data center will be powered entirely by geothermal energy and will feature state-of-the-art water saving technology to minimize water consumption.”
This is a very interesting project. As the world looks to shift towards more sustainable electricity generation projects, places like Kenya, which already have over 90% renewable energy sources as part of their electricity generation mix, will look increasingly attractive investment destinations. Major offtakers such as big data centers offer an opportunity to unlock Kenya's potential in the geothermal sector. Other interesting potential areas that could be explored to tap into Kenya's geothermal energy include powering electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen for ammonia for fertilizer, and making green steel using electric arc furnaces.
I hope this data center project will start in the near future.
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