Kenya launches first grid connected biogas plant

9th Feb 2015 Again Kenya makes today’s news for their success with the first ever grid-connected biogas plant on the African continent. According to the managing director of Tropical power Kenya Limited, Johnnie McMillan, the plant will start supplying power by the first of March this year. According to reports, the $6.5 million project named Gorge Farm Energy Park anaerobic digester, will consume fifty thousand tons of organic waste each year from a neighboring 800-hectare farm owned by VegPro Group, an investment partner of Tropical power.

Johnnie McMillan speaking on the  gas project is quoted as saying “We expect to achieve a five and a half year payback and that’s made possible by the aggregate tariff of what we sell to the grid, the locals around here and VegPro, which is East Africa’s biggest exporter of fresh vegetables to the U.K.,”

The 2.8-megawatt park was constructed in a year and the power it will put into the national grid will cost $0.10 per kilowatt hour compared with $0.38 per KWh for diesel-generated power. The plant will also house a 10-megawatt grid-connected solar PV Plant. This is obviously a much better deal, and more healthy actually.

According to the company, Tropical limited will not stop with Kenya but has their sights on other parts of the continent. They intend to build renewable power assets producing more than 130 megawatts by 2018. Presently, the company is planning to replicate the original Kenyan model in Ghana, near Lake Volta, where VegPro has a 1,000 hectare farm.