Menengai I Geothermal Power Station

The Menengai I Geothermal Power Station is a 35 MW geothermal power plant under construction in Kenya. The power station is owned and is being development by a consortium, which has formed a special vehicle company (SPV) to own, design, build, finance, operate and maintain the power station. For descriptive purposes, we will call that SPV Orpower Twenty Two  (OP22). Kenya Power and Lighting Company, the off-taker together with OP22, the independent power producer (IPP), plan to sign a 20-year power purchase agreement.

Location
The facility is located in the Menengai Crater, approximately 20 km, north of the city of Nakuru, where the county headquarters relocated. This is approximately 180 km, by road, northwest of Nairobi, the capital and largest city in Kenya. The coordinates of Menengai I Geothermal Power Station are: 0°11'53.0"S, 36°03'58.0"E (Latitude:-0.198056; Longitude:36.066111).

Overview
Geothermal Development Company (GDC), a company wholly owned by the Kenyan government drilled geothermal wells in the Menengai Crater, whose total capacity can generate up to 105 MW of electric energy. GDC will sell the steam to three independent power producers (IPPs) to build three geothermal power stations, each with capacity of 35 MW. The power stations are:

1. Menengai I Geothermal Power Station: Owned by Orpower Twenty Two 2. Menengai II Geothermal Power Station: Owned by Globelq and 3. Menengai III Geothermal Power Station: Owned by Sosian Energy.

Menengai I Geothermal Power Station uses new geothermal technology jointly developed by Toshiba Corporation and Ormat Technologies Inc to harness more energy from the steam supplied to the plant by increasing efficiency.

Ownership
The power station is owned by a consortium (Orpower Twenty Two), whose shareholding is illustrated in the table below: Vital Capital based in Switzerland became a shareholder in 2018, after Israel's Ormat Technologies divested from the project in 2018.

Developments
In January 2023, Kenyan media reported that Orpower 22, the SPV company that owns and is developing this power station had secured US$97 million in funding to build this power station. The source of funding was not disclosed.