| Title | KenGen's Wellhead Technology Experience and Business Insight |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ronoh KIBET, Roy BWOMA |
| Year | 2015 |
| Conference | World Geothermal Congress |
| Keywords | wellhead generators, early generation, rapid deployment |
| Abstract | Today geothermal energy is known as one of the most reliable alternative renewable energy source which has proved to be technically and economically feasible. Several modes of technologyare used to convert the geothermal energy to electricity but the paper will focus onwellhead generation technology. Kenya is focused to come up with generation of power to meet its acute powershortage and ever rising demand. Traditionally KenGen has been using conventional central power plants which involved months of well drilling and years central power plant construction. The wellhead technology seeks to take advantage the idle time between completion of drilling and start and finish of the central power plant. It yields an overlapping concept that harvests the capped steam as soon as it is available for immediate power and revenue generation prior to the central power plant completion. KenGen being the country’s leading power producer has embraced the use of well head generators in geothermal thus realizingearly generation. Wellhead Technology has a modular approach which connects wells with outputs of upto 15MW. The modular approach allows combination of wells using short steamlines instead of the traditional long lines which are very costly, time consuming to construct and subject to higher steam losses. The modules form clusters which generate power through the convectional mode of steam running turbines. The power is then directly fed into the grid. As a result Wellhead technology has enabled KenGen gain edge over the following challenges i. Immediate supply of power to address the rising demand for power ii. Due to its low capital cost and immediate utilization the company has been able to borrow capital and repay almost immediately unlike the traditional mode that took close to a year before the repayment plan kicked off. This minimizes interest gains on loan. iii. Reduced cost of power generation i.e. steam fields. iv. Power plant portability which taps into isolated & remote areas v. Higher revenue collection from the wellhead feed-in tariff as compared to the conventional PPA The paper seeks to address the wellhead (early generation) concept and KenGen’s experience is deploying this revolutionary technology. |