Geothermal Energy
The Indigenous, Renewable, Green Option
Dr. Silas M. Simiyu
Geothermal Development
Kenya Electricity Generating Company LTD
P.O Box 785, Naivasha Kenya
Presentation outline
Introduction
Geothermal
Development Process
Principles of Operation
Status
and development potential in Africa
Stages in Geothermal Development
Barriers
to Geothermal development in Kenya
Conclusions
2
World Wide Location
Geothermal power plants
 In the middle of crops
 In forested recreation areas
 In fragile deserts
 In tropical forests
 In game parks with fragile ecosystems
 In high population areas
3
Benefits of Geothermal Energy
 Provides clean and safe energy using little land
 Is renewable and sustainable
 Generates continuous, reliable “baseload” power
 Conserves fossil fuels and contributes to diversity
in energy sources
 Avoids importing and benefits local economies
 Offers modular, incremental development and
village power to remote sites
4
Geothermal and the Environment
 Geothermal energy is clean energy and renewable
 Geothermal power stations emit less greenhouse gases
compared to other sources of energy
Geo
Gas
0
Gas
Geo
0
Oil
500
Coal
5
Oil
10
CO2
1000
Coal
SO2
Emissions (kg/MWhr). From Reed and Renner, 1995
5
WHAT IS GEOTHERMAL
• Geothermal Energy
heat from the Earth
Transmitted:
i) Conduction
ii) Convection
• fluids via
fractures and
pores in the rocks
6
Geothermal Fields of the World
7
Rift Based Geothermal Model
8
Manifestations
Geysers
Hot Springs
Fumaroles
9
Hot Ground
Sulfur
Geothermal Development Process:
Kenya’s Examples
Geothermal Development process
Stage I: Exploration
Objective: Determine the viability of the resource
i) Heat Source –Energy source
ii) Fluid Recharge and pathways –Transport media
iii) Reservoir conditions
-Permeability, density and heat capacity
-fluid chemistry, phase and gases
iii) Baseline EIA
Make Decision: GO or NO-GO
Drill 3 Exploration wells to confirm results (-3,000)
-Carry out well testing
-Review results
Make Decision: GO or NO-GO
11
Geothermal Development process 2
Stage II: Sizing of the resource
 Appraisal Drilling of 6 wells ( depth 2,000 m to 3,000m)
 Objective: Determine the size of the resource




12
-(minimum) extent of resource confirmed
 -more accurate hydrological model
 -Volume, geometry, boundary conditions of resource
 -Pressure, Temperature and Overall fluid Chemistry
Feasibility study to determine viability of the project &
 Overall Economics: Plant size, type, funding and Tariffs
Complete Environmental Impact assessment
 Including public disclosure.
Environment Friendly Power Plant design
Make Decision: GO or NO-GO
Geothermal Development process 3
Stage III: Production drilling and Plant
Construction
Drilling of 16 wells ( depth 2,000 m to 3,000m)
Construction of steam gathering system and power plant
Put in Place Field and Environmental Management Procedures
-Make–up wells (Size, timing and location)
-Reservoir monitoring (Pressure, temperature and fluid
chemistry)
-Re-injection. (Maintain reservoir pressure and water mass)
-Rehabilitation. (Return the area close to what it was
originally)
Use collected data to carry out the following
-Optimization of the first plant for efficiency and productivity
-Remedial action if needed in response to reservoir effects
-Decision whether to increase capacity to second stage
13
Principles of Operation:
Power Generation
Schematic Diagram of Geothermal system
Generator
Cooling
Towers
Separators
Production Well
Water and Steam
15
Injection Well
Water
Type of Plants 1:
Condensing Dry Steam Power Plant
Steam
Turbine
Generator
Electricity
Steam
16
Condensed
Steam (Water)
Turbine Generator
Electricity
Steam entry
Coiled wire
cylinder
Turbine
blades
Steam outlet
to condenser
17
Magnetic
field
Types of Plant 2:
Condensing Flash Steam Power Plant
Flash
Tank
Hot
Water
18
Steam
Turbine
Generator
Electricity
Condensed
Steam (Water)
Condensing Flash Steam Plant
(Olkaria I & II)
POWER TRANSMISSION
(TO NATIONAL GRID)
COOLING TOWERS
STEAM FROM
OTHER WELLS
MAIN STEAM
GAS EXTRACTOR
STATION
TRANSFORMER
STEAM
GENERATED
ELECTRICITY
SEPARATOR
TURBINE
WATER
COOLED
CCONDENSATE
PUMP
GENERATOR
GASES
HOT CONDENSATE
CONDENSER
CHF
PUMP
Surface Rock
Cold
Surface Water
CHF
CHF
Intermediate
Temperature
Surface Rock
Surface Rock
Cold
Surface Water
Cold
Surface Water
High Temperature
Reservoir
Intermediate
Temperature
Intermediate
Temperature
High Temperature
Reservoir
PRODUCTION
WELL
High Temperature
Reservoir
RE-INJECTION
WELL
RE-INJECTION
WELL
FLOW DIAGRAM
19
Type of Plant 3:
Non Condensing Flash Steam Plant
SEPARATOR
PRODUCTION
WELL
CONTROL VALVE
(GOVERNOR)
REINJECTION
WELL
20
G
BACK PRESSURE
STEAM TURBINE
ATMOSPHERIC
DISCHARGE
Types of Plant 4:
Binary Cycle Power Plant
Binary
Vapor
Turbine
Generator
Electricity
Binary Liquid
Heat Exchanger
Hot
Water
21
Cooled
Water
Binary Cycle Power Plant:
Heat Exchanger
Binary vapor out
to turbine
Hot geothermal
water in from
production well
22
Binary liquid in
from condenser
Geothermal water
out to injection well
Binary Cycle Power Plant:
Aluto Langano –Ethiopia (8MW) & Olkaria III –
Kenya (13MW)
Steam and water
PRODUCTION
Isopentane
BINARY
TURBINE
HEAT EXCHANGER
COOLING
WATER / AIR
INJECTION
23
Mini-Geothermal Binary Cycle Power Plants:
Kapisya – Zambia & Oserian Kenya
Kapisya –Zumbu National park,
Zambia (160kW)





Binary plant owned by Zesco
Shallow drilled wells of 150-200m
Built in 1987 and not commissioned
Planed to use water at 90oC
Plant being upgraded by KenGen.
Oserian Dev Company
Kenya (2 MW)





Binary plant owned by Oserian Flower Farm
Commissioned July 2004
Using steam and re-injecting water
Steam leased from KenGen from 1 well.
Using only one well
KenGen is putting up a 2.5 MW Mini-Geothermal binary plant at Eburru
Use both steam and water from 1 well. Condense steam to water for community
24
Lake Baringo Borehole blowout
25
Principles of Operation:
Direct Uses
Heating Heat Exchanger
Cold clean water in
to be heated
Geothermal water
out to injection well
27
Hot water out
to buildings
Hot geothermal
water in from
production well
Heat Pump in Winter
Heat is
collected from
underground & transferred
to the building
28
District Heating
Injection Well
29
Production Wells
Geothermal Energy Utilization:
Direct Use –Oserian Green houses (Kenya)
i) Cut Roses Green house Heating ~100 hectares, ii) Refrigeration of cut flowers
storage and processing stores, iii) Injection of CO2 to aid in photosynthesis, iv)
Fumigation of soils and sterilization Sterilization of liquid recycled plant fertilizers
30
Geothermal Energy Utilization:
Direct Use II
Fish Farming
Crocodile Farming
31
Hot bath/spa
Swimming Pool
Geothermal Use:
Status and Potential in Africa
Geothermal Resources in
Africa
Potential in the great African Rift >
7,000 MW. Kenya’s geothermal
potential is in excess of 3,000 MW
Currently only Kenya
(130 MW), Ethiopia (8 MW)
and Zambia (0.2 MW)
have power stations.
There are plans to
install another 1,000 MW in Eastern
Africa over the next 10 years
Geothermal energy in North African
countries is mainly for greenhouse
heating and irrigation
33
Kenya’s Geothermal Potential
 Kenya’s geothermal power
potential is estimated at over
3,000 MW.
 Most of Kenya's Geothermal
potential areas (>20 fields)
occur within the Kenya Rift.
 Current installed geothermal
power: KenGen 115 MW and
IPP’s 15 MW.
 From above values, only a
small fraction of the estimated
resource has been harnessed.
34
Kenya‘s Planned Capacity Expansion
Kenya’s Geothermal Potential
CAPACITY (MWe)
3000
2500
IMPORTS
2000
THERMAL
1500
GEOTHERMAL
WIND
1000
500
HYDRO
2019
2017
2015
2013
2011
2009
2007
2005
2003
0
YEARS
Geothermal can meet all Kenya’s capacity expansion
requirements for the next 15 years
35
Why slow exploitation of Geothermal ?
Barriers to geothermal development
Large up-front investment in exploration,
appraisal and production drilling
Funding Constraints: Long financial closure
Technological Constraints: Manpower
(development and retention) & Equipment
Environmental & Social issue: Pollution, Land
Commercial & Legislative Framework
Risks: Country, Market, Corruption, Level
Playing Field etc
36
Overcoming Barriers:
Financing Geothermal Projects
Kenya’s Experience
Development requirements
It is all about
MONEY!!
 Projects are only worth developing if they create
adequate net through life benefit for the
developer, whether government or private
 This requires a guaranteed revenue stream and
manageable risks in resource supply
38
Financing Geothermal Development-1
 Resource Exploration: Geo-scientific
surface studies and exploratory drilling.
 In Kenya it’s usually the responsibility of
the government
 Resource Assessment: Drilling of
appraisal wells and well testing
 Both the Government & to a lesser
extent private sector
 Power Plant Development: Drilling of
production wells, steam pipelines and
Power Plant construction
 Shouldered by the Government and
Private sector
39
Current/Future Policy on Funding Options:
Resource Exploration and Assessment
 Research and Development fund set aside
by GoK
 Retention of the differential in interest on
on-lent funds from GoK
 Contracts, consultancies and steam sales
 Grants from research programs through
individual staff’s proposal writing efforts.
 Carbon Credit mechanism.
 Risk Guarantee Fund (GEF?)
 Utilization of the fuel levy fund.
40
Future Funding Options: Power
Plant Construction stage - 1
 Offering competitive bidding to
private and public institutions –
local & international.
 Strategic alliances e.g. KenGen
does all the field development
work and sells steam to IPPs.
 Carbon credit earned from displacing fossil fuels
 Early Generating units to provide cash stream
 Demonstrated capacity to generate a portion of the
funds required for the investment; typically 25%
Government offloading shares to the public
41
Overcoming Barriers:
Human Capacity Development
Kenya’s Experience
Geothermal Training in Africa
 Geothermal technology -specialized field.
 Development of a Geothermist takes many years;
On-job and focused need based training
 In the world, training facilities have been offered at:
Inst. for Geothermal Res., Pisa, Italy
Kyushu, Japan
Diploma Course, Auckland University.
UNU-GTP Iceland
Short Course Training in Kenya, KenGen/UNU
43
Trained v Installed MW
3500
3000
2500
2000
Trained
MW
1500
1000
500
0
Asia
44
L. America
Europe
Africa
UNU Fellows from Africa by 2006
45
Country
No. Trained
Retired
Available
Algeria
Burundi
Djibouti
Egypt
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Kenya
Tanzania
Tunisia
Uganda
Totals
3
1
1
3
3
22
41
1
6
6
86
3
1
1
0
1
10
5
1
0
2
24
0
0
0
3
0
11(8 MW)
36(130 MW)
0
6 (Low Temp)
3
59
Kenyans Trained at UNU-GTP


46
41 people trained

7 Geophysics

5 Reservoir Engineering

6 Geochemistry

5 Geology

3 Geothermal utilization

4 Drilling

5 Environment

3 Power Plant
36 Still active in geothermal

4 teaching at Universities

2 Out of the Country

3 Not active
KenGen’s Geothermal Training
Programme (Since 1982)
Progressive Graduate Technical staff training
 1 year geothermal course -New Zealand (Theory)
 After 2 years on job, -6 months practical training
course–Iceland.
 3 months specialized courses at Kyushu -Japan and
Pisa -Italy
 Long specialized courses in USA and Japan (PhD)
 All contracts/consultancies have a training component
 Encourages advanced training in Geothermal Technology
 Staff retention through Keeping them busy when back
 Out of 26 graduate technical staff on the project, there
are 4 PhD and 15 Msc holders
47
KenGen’s Geothermal Training
Programme (Since 1982)
 KenGen training policy -1 course per staff per year.
 KenGen Geothermal Training School established 1988
 Catering for KenGens internal training needs (esp. technicians)
 Recently affiliated to United Nations University (Iceland) where
joint short courses are offered to ARGeo members
 Training centre -linked to other International Centres in USA and
support by the Global Environment facility of GEF.
 The East African Rift Countries Tanzania, Djibouti, Kenya, Eritrea,
Uganda and Ethiopia formed ARGeo; a regional network of
geothermal agents
 Pool resources, including manpower & Equipment
 Create partnering required so that trained Africans can train
others through the training centre in Kenya
48
KenGen- UNU Geothermal Training
Centre
 First course held in November 2005
 Potential contribution of geothermal to
national energy needs
 Geothermal project management
 Focused on decision makers (PS’s,
CEO’s etc)
 Second course to be held November 2006
 Geothermal resource exploration and
appraisal
 Participants from: Rwanda, Zambia,
Burundi, Tanzania, Djibouti, Kenya, Eritrea,
Uganda and Ethiopia
 Facilitators:
 KenGen, UNU-GTP, ArGeo and GEF
49
Overcoming Barriers:
Lab and equipment Pool
Development
Kenya’s Experience
Introduction I
 The ability to carry out exploration and development depends on;
 Appropriate equipment that are easily accessible
 The total cost for an optimum equipment pool exclusive of labs is
about US $ 4,249,000
 This cost of equipment was beyond our means without a revenue
stream
 Need for long term plan to ensure continued acquisition and
availability through maintenance and upgrade
 From the Beginning KenGen determined
 What were the priority equipment
 Which ones were available in other accessible organizations
 How much can the owner charge for the service
 What are the maintenance and running costs if we buy
51
How equipment have been
acquired by KenGen before
 Started by use of limited internal resources to buy equipment in a




52
prioritized stepwise manner (Over 5 years).
A number of agencies, assisted KenGen to buy equipment.
Some acquisition were tied to project funding/contracts/research
 Equipment is handed over after the project
 Equipment is abandoned after the project
 Lead to a wide array of working and non working equipment.
Depending on the contract, some issues were overlooked
 Equipment Compatibility with existing ones
 Equipment maintenance and spare availability
 Environmental working conditions of the equipment
 Data sharing, processing and interpretation
KenGen ended up with many un-serviceable equipment
Low availability of equipment:
Identified Causes
 Lack of proper maintenance and Service caused by
 Poorly trained maintenance staff
 No budget for equipment maintenance
 Lack of accountability by equipment custodian
 Lack of planning for equipment upgrade
 Under-utilization of many of such equipment
 Projects occur once in a while
 Lack of coordination of activities in the
country/region
 Lack of knowledge of existence of potential users
53
Our Experience
 Developed service, maintenance and upgrade schedules
 Did proper recruitment of trainable staff & allowed
them to make mistakes
 Trained our technicians in instrument maintenance
and Service
 Every equipment was amortized, had a budget and
was ensured that it made money
 Insisted on accountability by equipment custodian
 Tried to get more users of our services in the country
 Buy equipment as a business
 Increased utilization of equipment –More money
54
Overcoming Barriers:
Environmental Issues
Kenya’s Experience
Environmental Issues I
Carry out Baseline Environmental conditions assessment at Stage I
-Determine the in-situ condition
-High-light and assess the sensitivity of the area to possible
development
-Cost the possible environment impact and mitigation measures
-Determine the potential Social Economic Impacts of the project
-Gather data on the potential Volcano Seismic hazards of the area
-Use the data as a basis for a GO or NO GO decision making
Carry out a full EIA with disclosure at Stage II
-Use it as a basis for planning monitoring and management
-Requirement for licensing of the project
-Part of the feasibility study
56
Environmental Issues II
Put in Place and Enforce Sound Field and Environmental
Management Procedures
-Community based Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
program (1% of net Profit)
Water for grazing, health and school facilities,
-Reservoir monitoring
Pressure and temperature
Fluid chemistry
Mass changes using gravimetry
Re-use condensed steam for cooling
-Re-injection.
Maintain reservoir pressure and fluid mass recharge
Avoid contamination of ground water & Subsidence
-Rehabilitation of disturbed areas during construction
Return the area close to its natural beauty
-Ecological monitoring and friendly designs of all works.
57
Overcoming Barriers:
Commercial and Legislative
Kenya’s Experience
Development Strategy
KPLC
PRIVATE 1
PRIVATE 2
Power Purchase Agreement
KENGEN or IPPs
Steam Supply Agreement
Geothermal Prospects
A
B
$
C
$
$
$
Geothermal Resource
Assessment & Development
Geothermal
Development
Company
Local & Foreign
Sources of Financing
59
D
E
$
GEOTHERMAL RESOURCE DEVELOPER
• Exploration Drilling
• Appraisal Drilling
• Production Drilling
• Steam Gathering Facilities
• Reservoir Management
Conclusions
 Geothermal Energy will play a leading role in provision of Africa’s
energy needs and governments should provide;
 Adequate human capacity through focused specialized training
 Carefully prioritized Equipment and other resources required.
 Funds for initial high risk investment stages of geothermal
development
 There is need to pool together in order to optimize use of
resources and accelerate development of Geothermal Energy
 Incentives such as tax holidays and an enabling Legal environment
will go a long way in attracting and retaining private investors in
the Geothermal power industry.
 Encourage public-private partnership participation.
60
THANK YOU
61