GESTO LEADS THE ASSESSMENT OF GEOTHERMAL POTENTIAL IN AFRICA

September 5, 2022

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Gesto was selected to lead a EU-TAF project to assess the geothermal potential and projects in the East African Rift Countries. This is a major acknowledgement of the company’s expert capacities in Geothermal Power Development and its integration to energy planning.

Gesto will lead a team of international geothermal experts and be responsible for developing the Specific Support Study on the Geothermal Power Plants, under assignment GT087 of the mobilization of the EU Technical Assistance Facility. This Specific Support Study on the Geothermal Power Plants will aim to support the development of the Continental Power System (Transmission and Generation) Masterplan (CMP).

The Africa Energy Ministers, during the AU Specialised Technical Committee meeting on Infrastructure (Transport, Energy and Tourism) held in Nouakchott and Cairo in 2018 and 2019 respectively, have gathered resources and efforts for the development of a Continental Power System (Transmission and Generation) Masterplan (CMP). To ensure the developing the CMP, the European Union Technical Assistance Facility (EU TAF) agreed to support a Baseline Study covering the generation and transmission systems through its ongoing support to the African Union Commission (AUC).

The overall objective of this assignment is to provide the necessary inputs for the development of a robust and accurate CMP model that takes into consideration the role of geothermal power generation in the continent’s energy mix, in line with the road map for the African Single Energy Market – AfSEM.

The model which will be used for the development of the CMP requires specific technical and economic inputs for the different technologies which will be considered as well as detailed information on the available technical potential, ideally at the level of each country. The potential of each technology should be assessed along with datasets necessary for modelling, such as dispatching, seasonal variability and the predictability of future generation.

Furthermore, the formulation of the policy scenarios will require several informed assumptions on (i) the effect of funding options and mechanisms for the projects to be considered in CMP, and the (ii) regulatory and institutional issues which could affect the deployment of technologies, the market development and the level of electricity trading.

This assignment will also identify the risks and both technical and non-technological barriers to the geothermal power deployment and the development processes, in order to shape an outlook of the potential feasible geothermal power production until 2040 and 2050.