| Abstract |
Geothermal energy is potentially an abundant source of energy across the East African Rift System (EARS) covering Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. According to the International Geothermal Association (IGA) East Africa is estimated to have geothermal resource potential of 20,000 Megawatt electrical (MWe). The demand for energy in East Africa remains significant. Although the share of population in East Africa without access to electricity has fallen from 90% in 2000 to 61% 2016 (IEA, 2017), the absolute number of people has increased by 8 million as electrification efforts have been outpaced by rapid population growth (Hafner et al., 2019). A BGS study by Jones (2018) highlighted the need for East African countries to diversify their energy portfolios and identified geothermal as a potential source of energy that could help these countries support their growing populations and economies._x000D_
East Africa currently has an installed electricity capacity of 8000 MW, with geothermal power having the potential to increase this capacity by 250%. Currently only Kenya and Ethiopia have a few operational geothermal sites with a combined installed geothermal energy capacity of 137 MWe. Since the 1980s the largest geothermal field in Kenya is Olkaria which now generates 130 MWe (Kombe and Muguthu, 2018). The rest of the regions potential remains poorly defined. To understand the regional potential for geothermal resources across the EARS, a summary of available data and knowledge is required in a way that permits estimation of the resource to help direct future research and exploration in the area. |
