HE President Uhuru Kenyatta today opened on 17th October 2014 the 140MW Olkaria IV geothermal power project. The power plant comprise of 2 units of 70MW capacity and is one of the two power plants which have been undergoing construction at Olkaria with a total capacity of 280MW. The second power plant Olkaria I units 4 and 5 will be commissioned later before the end of 2014.
The 280MW is the largest single geothermal power project of its kind in the world and confirms Kenya as one of the global leaders in the development of this renewable form of energy.
The Olkaria IV plant was built at a total cost of about $370 million. The Government of Kenya and China Exim Bank funded the drilling of the wells with the European Investment Bank, Agence Francaise de Development (AFD), the World Bank and KfW financing the construction of the plant and development of the steam fields.
Construction work began in 2012 involving consortium of Hyundai (Korea)/Toyota Tsusho (Japan) for the power plant, Sinopec (China) for steam field and KEC (India) for transmission lines. Commissioning tests for Olkaria IV unit began in June this year and were completed in August when the plant completed reliability run.
