GE to Build 150 MW Wind Farm in Kenya

Feb 15, 2012 2:00 PM ET
Campaign: Energy at GE

GE to Build 150 MW Wind Farm in Kenya

Kenya’s rapid economic growth is causing its electricity demand to grow at about 14% per year. The country is heavily reliant on fossil fuel imports, but wants to develop a broad range of renewable energy sources to help the government achieve its target of 2 GW of electricity from renewable sources by 2013.

Nearly half of the country’s energy demands are already produced from hydroelectricity, but there are plans to invest in solar and wind projects in order to further reduce the reliance on imported fossil fuels.

Wind is abundant on the Kano plains in Nyanza, better even than the wind found in California, but has only been traditionally used to provide power to pump water for the irrigation of croplands and local domestic consumption. Technological advances in wind turbine efficiency and the reduced cost of generators now allows Kenya to take better advantage of this free energy source with large scale wind farms.

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