- Rwanda is considering agro-processes to enhance its geothermal resources base.
- Africa’s geothermal investments are projected to reach $35 billion by 2050.
- By 2050, geothermal power capacity in Africa will more than double Europe’s capacity.
Rwanda geothermal energy offers the East African country a way to diversify its sources of electricity and reduce reliance on imported energy. According to official reports, Rwanda is aiming to add 30 megawatts of geothermal power to its electricity grid but it is also considering other uses of the energy resource, owing to the costs related to electricity generation using geothermal resources.
“We are focusing on developing direct heat utilization and continuing exploration for deeper resources to produce electricity in the future,” Eugene Karangwa, Head of Alternative Energies and Geothermal at Rwanda Energy Group (REG), announced recently. He said Rwanda is looking to utilize its geothermal resources directly for heating and drying, and not just electricity generation.
The Rwandan official added that the country is collaborating with the United Nations, the UN Environment Programme for capacity building on how to best use their geothermal resources.
Due to the related costs, and the nature of our geothermal sources, the official said, Rwanda is considering multiple applications of the resource. Among other options that the country is exploring include, agro-food processing, small-scale fisheries, vegetable drying, cold storage, and other industrial processes that require heat.
He explained that temperatures around 100 degrees Celsius or lower can be used for applications such as milk pasteurization, crop drying, and cold storage to prevent post-harvest losses and all these are options we are looking at, he told media.
“One problem we’re addressing is the drying of rice to maintain its quality from farm to factory. There are also issues with preserving fruits and vegetables, which could benefit from geothermal heat,” noted Karangwa.
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Challenges to Rwanda geothermal exploration plan
According to the Head of Alternative Energies and Geothermal at Rwanda Energy Group (REG), the major challenge slowing down their development of geothermal is the costly nature of the exploration, in particular, the cost of drilling wells.
“We are trying to secure funding to drill deeper and develop a pilot project combining geothermal with solar energy for a cold storage system,” Karangwa told local media.
The government has so far contributed over $200,000, which is about 20 per cent of the total $800,000 required in the exploration of the Gisenyi geothermal prospect.
“REG is also collaborating with European and Kenyan universities under the African Union and European Union Renewable Energy framework under which Rwanda was selected as a pilot site for the Geothermal Village concept,” the official told press.
The official also revealed that Rwanda is tapping into grants to finance its geothermal ambitions and looking to engage green energy partners to establish what he described as ‘a risk-sharing mechanism.’
“This means that to attract private investment, a fund could be set up where a private company drills wells, and if the wells are unsuccessful, a portion of the cost would be covered by the fund, reducing the risk for the private sector,” he explained.
In this regard, Rwanda is currently in talks with the Geothermal Risk Mitigation Facility (GRMF), he said and in the same vein, Rwanda is leveraging technology for exploration activities, the official said.
“If we use the latest technologies, we will be able to conduct deeper research aimed at accelerating the development of geothermal energy. The success of this exploration stage, which will include drilling of shallow wells, will determine how much we are able to generate in form of power from geothermal sources,” he detailed.
“For electricity production, we need to drill deep wells, and build a power plant. At this stage, we are focusing on developing direct heat utilisation and continuing exploration for deeper resources to produce electricity in the future,” he clarified.
Geothermal potential in Africa
Rwanda is on the right track to invest in geothermal power as reports indicate that “Africa’s geothermal energy sector is poised for a significant leap, with investments projected to reach $35 billion by 2050, potentially surpassing Europe’s geothermal capacity within the decade.”
The projection is made by Rystad Energy which emphasizes the critical role that geothermal energy will play in meeting Africa’s growing energy demands. In its report, Rystad Energy describes the geothermal map of Africa as been based along the Great Rift Valley. The valley, which spans a whopping 6,000 kilometers offers areas of thin Earth crust making them easier to access geothermal resources that are otherwise deep below the crust.
For example, the report cites Kenya’s Olkaria Geothermal Power Station, which has been operational since 1981 and currently delivers nearly 900 megawatts and has the potential to clock 5,000 megawatts by 2030.
By comparison, Rwanda’s geothermal energy comes from a geological area called the Kivu Rift, that is also part of the East African Rift System. However, unlike the eastern branch in Kenya and Ethiopia, the Kivu Rift opens to geothermal areas where temperatures are lower compared to Kenya. For this reason, Rwanda is looking at alternative uses of its geothermal resources.
“Despite being home to only about one gigawatt (GW) of geothermal capacity in 2023, which is about half of Europe’s total output, Africa’s total installed capacity will more than double by 2030, based solely on already announced projects,” Rystad Energy reports.
That’s not all, the report points out that, if ‘yet-to-be-announced projects’ are to be put into the equation, Africa’s capacity could triple by 2030. “By 2050, we expect geothermal power generation capacity in Africa to expand to 13 GW, more than double the expected 5.5 GW of installed capacity in Europe,” the report attests.
It also points to Kenya and Ethiopia as the expected leaders in the growth of Africa’s geothermal sector, and will account for up to 90 per cent of total capacity.
Kenya: Africa’s leader in geothermal energy industry
Already, Kenya is Africa’s largest producer of geothermal energy, and at the COP28 summit, it secured a $1 billion deal for a geothermal project at Suswa with the Indonesian government and Masdar-backed Pertamina Geothermal Energy.
“The deal allows Kenya to develop a 300-megawatt geothermal power plant that will supply electricity to the national grid and support industrial development,” the report reveals.
Further still, the Geothermal Development Company of Kenya secured yet another deal with AMEA Power of the UAE which committed $800 million to a 200-megawatt Paka Geothermal Project.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), as of last year, geothermal energy accounted for 28 per cent of the installed capacity of energy sources in Kenya, making it the single biggest contributor to the country’s energy output mix.
“The momentum in geothermal exploration extends beyond Kenya. East African nations, including Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda have announced plans for geothermal exploration,” the report says.
To put it into perspective, the above mentioned capacity is only that of several East African countries, when the West part of the continent is thrown into the picture, Africa’s geothermal capacity dwarfs that of Europe by far.
