KENYA – The Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen), Kenya’s largest electricity generator, has published an invitation for international firms to do a feasibility study for the building of a waste-to-energy plant in Nairobi, Kenya.

The plant, which is originally planned to be located at the Dandora landfill near in Nairobi, will be built in partnership with the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, the national government agency that is responsible for managing Eastern Africa’s leading city.

KenGen, in a press release, has published an Expressions of Interest (EoI) from eligible consultancy firms to conduct a feasibility study for development and operation of the Waste to Energy Plant at the Dandora Dumpsite,

The company says that in the event that this site is not suitable, the consultant shall recommend an alternative site for the planned project.

Under the terms of the agreement, the NMS will make land in and around the Dandora landfill site available to KenGen in addition to availing solid waste for processing at the facility.

According to estimates, the City of Nairobi produces about 3,000 tonnes of solid waste per day that is transported to the recently upgraded Dandora landfill thanks to funding of KSh50 million (US$492,000) from the Nairobi County Government.

For its part, KenGen will finance, develop and operate the power plant to supply the Kenyan electricity grid.

“The capacity of the power plant and its total cost will be determined after the feasibility study and ongoing discussions with KenGen,” said Stephen Nzioka, the Environment, Water and Sanitation Manager of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).

In addition to power generation, the establishment of a waste-to-energy plant in Dandora will enable KenGen to further diversify its services in the East African sub-region, notes the company.

The company currently supplies electricity generated from hydroelectric, thermal and geothermal and wind sources, with the bulk of its power coming from hydroelectric sources.

The project will also ultimately see Nairobi join the few cities such as Addis Ababa of Ethiopia and Durban City of South Africa in the African continent, which generate large-scale electricity from garbage.

The Durban city plant was developed by General Electric (GE) Company, an American multinational conglomerate in aviation, healthcare, power, renewable energy, digital industry, additive manufacturing, and venture capital and finance sectors.

Ethiopia’s Reppie waste-to-energy plant was inaugurated in 2018. The plant has a capacity to process over 1,400 tonnes of waste every day and produce over 185,000,000 KWh of electricity to the Ethiopian national grid per year, according to information by the company.

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