Reg. No: F56/38291/2020

Thesis / Project Title: An Investigation into The Potential For Application Of Pumped Hydro Energy Storage System In The Kenyan Electricity Grid

Kenya’s generation mix has a contribution of 74% from renewable sources and an observed 12.5% increase of wind energy contribution between 2017 and 2019. The Least Cost Power Development Plan (LCPDP) of 2020 -2040 indicates an expected 1135MW of wind and solar plants to be commissioned and interconnected within the Kenyan grid. This implies that the problems of variability and intermittency from wind and solar will have to be addressed.

This study has investigated how much storage will be needed for the Kenyan context through study of country’s load characteristics, installed capacities and curtailed energy. Potential sites have further been studied and ranked using the Saaty method according to their feasibility. Best practices in the top three countries with installed Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES) and South Africa for the African context have been studied to determine trends, challenges and opportunities of PHES in these countries.

The study determined that there is a 1000 MW gap between the peak and valley periods in the load characteristic and a 500MW PHES plant would be adequate in improving the load characteristic to an almost flat load curve. The electricity grid of Kenya curtails geothermal energy instead of the variable renewable energy sources due to the nature of

the Power Purchase agreements with these companies. An average of 1956MWHr was curtailed in 2020 and 950MWHr in 2021. PHES is a recommended form of storage for the Kenyan grid because of its ability of bulk storage and ancillary services it offers to the grid.