Kenya’s Geothermal Company Says it Gets Bids from Toshiba, GE and Alstom

Kenya’s state-owned Geothermal Development Co. said it received bids from 19 companies to develop eight, 100-megawatt steam-powered electricity plants at the Bogoria-Silali block in the country’s northwest.

Companies that placed tenders include Mitsubishi Corp. (8058), Alstom SA (ALO) based in France, General Electric Co. (GE) in the U.S., and Toshiba Corp. (6502), Silas Simiyu, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview in Nairobi today.

The company plans to select a different company to build each of the eight facilities once investors in the project including the World Bank gives GDC the go-ahead, he said.

“We want them to compete against each other to get the plants up,” Simiyu said. Construction of the power plants is expected to start as early as January and be completed in 2017 at a cost of 291 billion shillings ($3.1 billion), GDC’s chief geologist John Lagat said on June 27.

Kenya, Africa’s largest geothermal producer, is scaling up its search for underground steam deposits with a $2.6 billion, 10-year plan to sink 566 wells at the Olkaria, Menengai and Bogoria-Silali sites. The country has an estimated geothermal potential of 7,000 megawatts to 10,000 megawatts, according to GDC.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah McGregor in Nairobi at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.