Page 15 - AfrElec Week 23 2022
P. 15
AfrElec RENEWABLES AfrElec
Kenya offers cheap geothermal
energy to crypto miners
KENYA KENYA’S largest electricity producer, KenGen Libya has the highest bitcoin hash rate share, sit-
PLC, is seeking to attract cryptocurrency miners ting at 0.14% of all worldwide mining, according
in order to turn the country into the continent’s to data by the University of Cambridge’s Centre
block reward mining hub, its acting director for for Alternative Finance, as cited by CoinGeek.
geothermal development has said. Kenya’s share is negligible, but the country hopes
According to Peketsa Mwangi, several miners to encourage mining operations to move to the
from Europe and the US have already been in country. Some companies have already been in
contact with the company, which is Africa’s top touch, Mwangi said.
geothermal producer, with an installed capac- “Their power requests vary, some of them
ity of 863MW. As a whole, the country has the had asked to start with 20MW to be later gradu-
potential to eventually produce 10,000MW of ated… crypto mining is very energy-intensive,”
geothermal energy along its rift valley region. she explained.
“We’ll have them here because we have the The global carbon footprint of Bitcoin has
space and the power is near, which helps with been a significant challenge posed to enthu-
stability,” Mwangi said, as quoted by local daily siasts by its detractors. However, 80% of
The Standard, noting that a geothermal power KenGen’s power generation comes from renew-
station is located in Naivasham, near the capital able sources, meaning operations moving to the
Nairobi. country could help contribute to the reduction of
As things stand, of all African countries, emissions caused by mining.
Canada’s JCM Power adds 20MW
of solar capacity to Malawi grid
MALAWI JCM Power, a Canadian independent power energy into utility’s networks,” said JCM Power
producer, has commissioned a 20MW solar pho- in the release.
tovoltaic (PV) and battery-storage project in the “The inclusion of the battery system means
Dedza District of south-central Malawi. the project will reduce variation in output during
The company said in a statement on June cloud cover, dispatch energy in the evening peak,
2 that together with infrastructure investor and support controlling voltage and frequency
InfraCo Africa, it had put the Golomoti Solar of the grid.”
PV and Battery Energy Storage project into com- JCM Power chief executive officer Christian
mercial operation. Wray expressed the hope that this “pioneering”
Construction of the project had started in project would “serve as a catalyst for many simi-
April 2021 and created 550 jobs, 85% of which lar projects in the future”.
were filled by Malawians. The investment The project was made possible with support
includes a 20-MWac/28.5-MWdc solar array, from a number of partners. Power Africa (a US
coupled with a 5-MW/10-MWh lithium-ion entity that invests in power projects on the con-
battery. tinent) provided development funding. Innovate
Golomoti is JCM Power’s second renewable UK’s Energy Catalyst programme supplied grant
energy project in Malawi after the 60MW Salima funding for the batteries. Finally, IFU of Den-
Solar project, which entered service in October mark provided JCM with debt financing.
2021. Malawi has one of the world’s lowest elec-
JCM Power says Golomoti is the first utili- tricity access rates, estimated at 15% by Power
ty-scale grid-connected hybrid solar and battery Africa, which puts the country’s installed gener-
energy-storage project in Sub-Saharan Africa. ating capacity at just 532 MW, of which 372 MW
“This marks a milestone for the region as consists of hydroelectric plants.
energy storage serves as an important tool to
integrate increasing amounts of renewable
Week 23 09•June•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P15
