Enhanced Geothermal Power Station DeepSource Goes Live in Kenya: Mining Clean Energy at the Foot of a Volcano

Enhanced Geothermal Power Station DeepSource Goes Live in Kenya: Mining Clean Energy at the Foot of a Volcano

Kenya's geothermal development company KenGen announced on April 3 that DeepSource, the first enhanced geothermal system (EGS) power station in the East African Rift, has officially launched. Unlike traditional geothermal plants that rely on natural hot water reservoirs, EGS technology creates artificial fractures in deep hot dry rock, expanding the accessible geothermal resource base.

DeepSource's wells reach 4,500 meters deep with underground temperatures exceeding 300°C. The system injects high-pressure water to create fracture networks in granite layers; cold water is heated by geothermal energy and extracted from a second well to drive turbines. First-phase capacity is 50MW, powering approximately 100,000 households.

KenGen says EGS technology expands Kenya's accessible geothermal resources tenfold, with the potential to grow installed geothermal capacity from the current 900MW to 5,000MW by 2035.