Kenyan KenGen Offers Geothermal Power to Miners

Kenya’s largest hydropower company, KenGen, intends to provide surplus of its geothermal energy for cryptocurrency mining in order to make the country the center of the mining industry in Africa.

KenGen’s acting director of development, Peketsa Mwangi, said the company ready provide miners with their facilities in the Rift Valley of Kenya, which can be used to mine cryptocurrencies. Mwangi said the company had already been contacted by companies in Europe and the US about the issue. Some are already ready to start with 20 MW of power, gradually increasing the energy intensity of mining. If the initiative is implemented, Kenya will become the center of the mining industry on the African continent, a KenGen top manager is sure.

“We are ready to place miners here because we have the territory and stable access to electricity,” Mwangi said, referring to the company’s main geothermal power plant in the city of Naivasha, about 76 km from the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

The power engineer says Kenya is Africa’s leading geothermal energy producer, generating 863 MW of power, most of which comes from KenGen. The country can put more than 10,000 MW of electricity to good use in the Rift Valley region, as most of the resources are not being used yet.

According to January data Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Libya is one of the few African countries where cryptocurrency mining is popular. But its share is only 0.14% of the total hashrate of the Bitcoin network. Egypt accounts for 0.02%, South Africa in third place with 0.01%.

The almost complete absence of miners in Kenya contrasts strongly with the active adoption of digital assets in the country. Despite the fact that the central bank warns citizens about the risks of investing in digital assets, Kenya has led in recent years in the number of cryptocurrency transactions. At the same time, the regulator discusses with the public the risks and benefits of launching a digital Kenyan shilling.